NEW DELHI — Twenty-four people were found guilty Thursday of massacring Muslims during the 2002 religious riots that tore through Gujarat, a state then led by Narendra Modi, who is now India’s prime minister.

A judge in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city, acquitted 36 people for lack of evidence, including a police inspector and a midranking official in the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Modi.

The verdict is the latest in more than a dozen prosecutions arising from the riots, and the first since Modi became prime minister. The judge did not implicate officials who were working under Modi’s authority at the time, and the ruling rejected charges of conspiracy, casting the massacre instead as an episode of mob violence.

But it was a reminder of a bloody episode that the prime minister, now a high-profile international leader, has taken great pains to put behind him. On trips abroad, including to the United States next week, Modi will probably face more questions about communal violence and the far-right agenda advanced by some in his party.

Two more cases stemming from the Gujarat riots, in which about 1,000 people were killed over the course of two months, are still pending. One of those cases, brought by the widow of Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament who was killed in the attacks, seeks to establish that the riots were the result of a high-level conspiracy involving Modi.

The case on Thursday involved the attack in which Jafri was killed, on Feb. 28, 2002, one of the worst episodes of the Gujarat riots. A crowd of Muslims, mostly women and children, had taken shelter in a compound in Ahmedabad from a mob of thousands of Hindu men armed with stones, iron rods, and gasoline-soaked rags.

Witnesses said that for hours, Jafri, who lived in the compound, had made frantic calls to city officials asking for police protection. But the compound was already on fire when police arrived in force, and the people inside died of burns and smoke inhalation. Sixty-nine people died.

Of the 24 people convicted Thursday, 11 were found guilty of murder, which brings a minimum punishment of life in prison and a possible death sentence, according to lawyers who emerged from the courthouse on Thursday. Others were convicted of lesser charges, including arson and looting. Sentences will be announced Monday.

A spokesman for Modi’s party expressed satisfaction with the verdict because it did not point to official involvement.

“There was so much of a witch hunt against the current prime minister, and in that sense I am happy,’’ said the spokeswoman, Shaina Nana Chudasama.

Teesta Setalvad, an activist who has spearheaded a campaign to prosecute Gujarat officials, called Thursday’s verdict “hugely disappointing’’ because the judge did not cast the riot as a conspiracy.

“When you have a mob of 66 accused, then common intent is already established,’’ she said. “That means at a local level, there was a conspiracy.’’