Gujarat riots: All accused, including Maya Kodnani, acquitted in Naroda Patiya massacre case

A special court on Thursday acquitted all the 69 accused in the Naroda Gam communal riot case of 2002, in which eleven members of the Muslim community were killed.

Former Gujarat minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Maya Kodnani, and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi are among the accused facing charges of murder, criminal conspiracy, rioting, and arson. Eighteen of the accused died in the intervening period.

The trial began in 2010 and has continued for almost 13 years, with six different judges presiding over the case.

Eleven people of the minority community were killed in Naroda Gam area in Ahmedabad city in the 2002 riots, during a shutdown call given to protest the Godhra train carnage a day before in which 58 passengers, mostly Karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed.

A total of 82 people are facing trial in the case. Kodnani, is one of the accused in the case, was the state's women and child development minister in former chief minister Narendra Modi's government.

Home Minister Amit Shah had appeared as a defence witness for Kodnani in 2017.

Kodnani had requested the court to summon him to prove her alibi that she was present in the Gujarat Assembly and later at the Sola Civil Hospital and not at Naroda Gam where the massacre took place.

Kodnani and Bajrangi were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012. The Gujarat high court upheld Bajrangi's conviction but acquitted Kodnani. The massacre at Naroda Gam was one of the nine major 2002 communal riots cases investigated by the SIT and heard by special courts.

(with PTI inputs)