A special court in the western Indian state of Gujarat Friday convicted nine people and acquitted 32 others in connection with a post-communal riots case in a small village of the state a decade ago, sources said.

"The special court judge convicted the nine people for the killings of three persons, including two women, at the village's Malav Bhagol locality in 2002. A total of 41 people were accused in the case of post-Godhra train carnage," the sources said.

This was the second case of the 2002 communal riots at Ode village that was being probed by the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team.

On March 1, 2002, as communal riots spread across Gujarat after the Godhra train-burning incident in February 2002, a mob of Hindus attacked about 20 Muslim homes in Ode. Members of several families in the neighborhood took refuge in one three-storeyed house. The mob set fire to it.

According to a survivor, a total of 23 people were killed in the three-hour-long horror. However, only two bodies could be recovered. Nine children and nine women were among those killed.

The Ode massacre was one among the nine post-Godhra riot cases investigated by the Special Investigating Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court.

In the first Ode village massacre case, another court had sentenced 18 people to life imprisonment while awarding seven years jail to five others, for their role in the killings of 23 people post-Godhra riots.