Naroda Patiya riots case: Maya Kodnani acquitted

TIL Desk/National/Gandhinagar/ The Gujarat high court has acquitted Bharatiya Janata Party former minister Maya Kodnani in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case in which 97 Muslims were massacred after the Godhra riots.

The division bench found no criminal conspiracy in the riots and observed that the none of the witnesses were reliable.  The court however found Babu Bajrangi guilty, and has upheld the conviction of the trial court.

Suresh Langado alias Richard Chhara has also been found guilty. Kodnani’s personal assistant, Kirpal Singh Chabda, who was convicted by the trial court was also acquitted.

Out of the 32 convicts in the case, the Gujarat High court acquitted 17 people including Maya Kodnani. The conviction of 12 was upheld, verdict on two others awaited, 1 accused is dead.

A division bench of the court comprising justice Harsha Devani and justice AS Supehiya concluded the hearing and reserved the order in the case last August. In 2012, a special court for Special Investigation Team cases had sentenced 32 people to life imprisonment.