INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
sentenced to 28 years in prison for leading the biggest massacre in the Gujarat riots of 2002, has been acquitted by the Gujarat High
her role in the riots in Naroda Patiya, a suburb of Ahmedabad, where 100 Muslims were killed in the single bloodiest episode of the
three-day violence that followed the Godhra train burning of February 27, 2002, in which 59 Hindu volunteers were killed.A Special
Investigation Team had said that a day after the Godhra incident, Maya Kodnani incited mobs and was seen at the spot by 11 witnesses
Witnesses had told the court that she handed out swords to rioters, exhorted them to attack Muslims and at one point fired a pistol.A trial
court had held that she organised the mass killings.But the High Court noted that out of the 11 witnesses, none had named her when the riots
case was being registered
Witnesses said they had seen Maya Kodnani coming out of her car to talk to the police
seen Maya Kodnani first at the Gujarat assembly and then at the hospital she ran.Maya Kodnani was granted bail in 2014 after she said she
was very unwell; she was reportedly given shock therapy for depression
She is also accused of murder in the riots that took place on the same day, February 28, 2002, next door in Naroda Gram, where 11 Muslims
were killed.In the Naroda Gram case, BJP president Amit Shah testified in September that when the riots took place, 10 km from Ahmedabad, he
had seen her first at the Gujarat assembly and then at a government-run hospital where she was consoling families of the Godhra victims.A
number of high court judges including justices Akil Kureshi, MR Shah, KS Jhaveri, GB Shah, Sonia Gokani and RH Shukla recused themselves
from the case during the hearing on appeals.Five years after the riots, she was made the Minister for Woman and Child Development by then
Chief Minister Narendra Modi
She held the ministry till her arrest in 2009.
