Ahmedabad, June 6: Public prosecutor R.C. Kodekar today sought death for the 11 people convicted of murder in the Gulbarg Society case, saying the February 2002 carnage that left 69 people dead was nothing short of "cold-blooded... mass murder".

The special court that last week convicted 24 persons in the case, one of the worst pogroms of the Gujarat riots, adjourned to June 9 the hearing on the quantum of punishment.

At the hearings today, Kodekar sought capital punishment for the 11 as he termed the massacre "rarest of rare".

Among those killed in the carnage, a day after the Godhra train burning, was former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, while 39 bodies were charred beyond recognition.

Seeking maximum "exemplary punishment" for those convicted of the massacre in the Ahmedabad neighbourhood, the public prosecutor said the only fault of the victims was that they belonged to a "particular community".

Kodekar argued that the convicted persons - among them former Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Atul Vaidya - were a "menace to the society", and there was "no possibility of reforming or rehabilitating them" and sought capital punishment or "life imprisonment till death".

S.N. Vohra, the lawyer for the victims, sought life imprisonment for those convicted of murder and jail for 10 years for the 13 convicted of lesser offences like looting, rioting and arson.

Defence counsel Abhay Bhardwaj said the prosecution had not succeeded in establishing conspiracy and argued that the convicts had no criminal record before 2002 and their action was a spontaneous reaction to the train burning. The lawyer also said the housing society was attacked only after the former MP had opened fire.

"...It has been accepted in the investigation that in the firing by (Eshan) Jafri, one person died and 15 others were injured. The crowd at that time thought that the other 15 who were injured have also died... the atmosphere was surcharged," he said.

In his order on June 2, special judge P.B. Desai had held 24 of the 66 accused guilty under various charges and acquitted 36. Six of the accused had died during the trial.

Since one of the convicted accused, Kailash Dobhi, is absconding, the public prosecutor urged the court to keep his sentencing in abeyance. The judge agreed.

The defence said it would seek compensation for those acquitted as they had to undergo mental trauma during the long years of trial.