An Indian court has convicted 24 suspects, 11 of them for murder, for their part in religious riots in 2002 in western India.

Special Court Judge P. B. Desai said Thursday that their sentences will be announced next week. Those convicted of murder could be sentenced to death.

The judge acquitted 36 charged in connection with the rioting in Ahmadabad, the main city in Gujarat state, in which 69 people, including former Congress lawmaker Ehsan Jafri, were killed by a Hindu mob.

The riots were triggered when Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists 2002, killing 60. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in three months of violence that hit the state after that.

Riot-related cases often move slowly through India's creaky legal system.