One of the accused (left) arrives at the court. Picture by Dilip Kumar

Bhagalpur, June 18: Fourteen persons were convicted today for the massacre of 116 men, women and children near Bhagalpur in 1989.

The gulf between the number of accused and the victims grew more pronounced when one of the 14 could not be traced.

Several hundred “outsiders” had streamed into Logain, 26 km from Bhagalpur, killed members of the minority community, destroyed their property and buried them in a mass grave, over which they planted cauliflowers to camouflage the crime.

The grave was discovered 44 days later and it took over three months to exhume the decomposed bodies. The resultant polarisation had turfed the Congress out and heralded the Lalu Prasad era.

But police could file charges against only 24. Six of them died during the trial, four disappeared and were declared proclaimed offenders while the remaining 14 were found guilty today, their sentence to be pronounced on June 27.

High drama unfolded in the courtroom in Bhagalpur when the police were asked to arrest all the 14 accused, who had been out on bail. One of them, Jaiprakash Mandal, could not be found.

Initially, it was thought that he fled and a warrant was issued. But a lawyer claimed that he did not turn up today.

Barring a policeman and a chowkidar, the remaining 12 convicted are residents of Logain. The villagers claimed that they have been made scapegoats while the real culprits, all outsiders, have got away.

Several survivors of the Logain massacre had publicly levelled charges against a local upper-caste village head, who had allegedly instigated the massacre because he wanted to grab a piece of land. But he was not charged.

Nazim, a riot survivor who escaped by hiding in paddy fields for 48 hours, exclaimed: “God is great. He has punished some of the culprits but has spared many more.”

The oldest among the Logain accused convicted today was Sukhdeo Mandal, 82. He leaned on two of his grandsons and was virtually carried to the courtroom. Sukhdeo broke down and claimed that the police had rounded them up as they were soft targets.

More than 600 cases relating to the month-long communal riots have been registered. So far, around 200 people have been found guilty.