other Hindus were acquitted of murder charges due to a lack of evidence. Twenty-two further people were convicted for attempted murder on 30 July 2012, while sixty-one others were acquitted. Naroda Patiya Massacre On 29 July 2012, an Indian court convicted thirty people in the Naroda Patiya massacre case for their involvement in the attacks. The convicted included former state minister Maya Kodnani and Hindu leader Babu Bajrangi. The court case began in 2009, and over three hundred people (including victims, witnesses, doctors, and journalists) testified before the court. For the first time, the verdict acknowledged the role of a politician in inciting Hindu mobs. Activists asserted that the verdict would embolden the opponent of Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, in the crucial run-up to state elections later that year, when Modi would be seeking a third term (The BJP and he eventually went on to win the elections). Modi refused to apologise and denied that the government had a role in the riots. Twenty-nine people were acquitted during the verdict. Teesta Setalvad said "For the first time, this judgment actually goes beyond neighborhood perpetrators and goes up to the political conspiracy. The fact that convictions have gone that high means the conspiracy charge has been accepted and the political influencing of the mobs has been accepted by the judge. This is a huge victory for justice." Perjury cases In April 2009, the SIT submitted before the Court that Teesta Setalvad had cooked up cases of violence to spice up the incidents. The SIT which is headed by former CBI director, R. K. Raghavan has said that false witnesses were tutored to give evidence about imaginary incidents by Setalvad and other NGOs. The SIT charged her of "cooking up macabre tales of killings." The court was told that twenty-two witnesses, who had submitted identical affidavits before various courts relating to riot incidents, were questioned by SIT and it was found that the witnesses had not actually witnessed the incidents and they were tutored and the affidavits were handed over to them by Setalvad. Inquiries There were more than sixty investigations by national and international bodies many of which concluded that the violence was supported by state officials. A report from the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) stated that res ipsa loquitur applied as the state had comprehensively failed to protect uphold the rights of the