ahmedabad the gujarat high court kept its verdict on the haren pandya murder case reserved till august 29 as the monthlong proceedings on the convicts appeals got over on friday former home minister pandya was shot dead on march 26 2003 near law garden the case was probed by the cbi that nabbed 15 persons out of 19 named as accused for killing the politician in order to avenge the 2002 riots a special pota court convicted 12 persons on june 25 2007 and awarded life imprisonment to nine of them two others got seven years jail and one got a fiveyear jail term the main accused from hyderabad asghar ali was punished with imprisonment till he lives the key suspects who could not be nabbed were accused of inciting muslim youths to avenge the riots they are believed to be involved in sending youths to terror training camps run by jaishemohammed and lashkaretaiba in pakistan the case also involved the incident of an attempt on the life of vhp leader jagdish tiwari during hearing of the appeal the prosecution completely relied on eyewitness anil yadram and the confessions of the accused persons however the defence lawyers put emphasis on medical and scientific evidence like injuries and number of bullets fired the bone of contention remained the injury in the lower part of the scrotum the defence lawyers also questioned the prosecutions bid to drop other witnesses and not examining pandyas wife jagrutiben they also dubbed the conduct of eyewitnesses as unnatural besides this the credibility of confessions was also questioned with claims that they were recorded in sanskritised language which was not the language known to the accused while the cbi urged the court to enhance the punishment of accused the defence claimed that murder charges cannot be proved against them and they should be given benefit of the doubt after hearing the case a bench of justice d h waghela and justice j c upadhyay kept their order for pronouncement on august 29box family dissatisfied with probe conviction as soon as 12 persons were convicted by pota court haren pandyas wife jagrutiben and father vitthalbhai expressed dissatisfaction with the cbi probe and outcome of the trial and demanded reinvestigation vitthalbhais desperate efforts to become a party in the hc proceedings were not fulfilled on the ground of delay he also approached the supreme court demanding questioning of chief minister narendra modi in this case as he had been loudly expressing his doubts from the beginning the apex court too turned his request down in july 2009 terming it as baseless jagrutiben sought reinvestigation again after an important witness in the sohrabuddin sheikh fake encounter case azam khan testified before cbi hinting at possible involvement of the gangster in the haren pandya murder case