An Indian court on Friday sentenced a former state minister to a minimum 28 years in jail for her role in instigating the worst massacre during deadly religious riots in Gujarat in 2002.
Maya Kodnani, who served as a minister in Gujarat’s Hindu nationalist state government from 2007-2009, was sentenced to “enhanced life imprisonment” over the killing of 97 Muslims in the Naroda Patiya suburb of the city of Ahmedabad.
Principal judge Jyotsna Yagnik called the former minister “the kingpin of the religious riots” and awarded her a ten-year and 18-year sentence for murder and other charges including inciting religious hatred. Yagnik said 57-year-old Kodnani, who was an ally and former minister from 2007-2009 under Gujarat’s long-standing Chief Minister Narendra Modi, was guilty of “instigating mobs and provoking unlawful assembly. “In a way she has helped the entire crime,” she said. Kodnani was among 32 people convicted on Wednesday of murder and taking part in the riots. Of them, seven others received sentences of 31 years minimum, while 22 got standard life sentences of 14 years.
A leader of a local extremist Hindu group, Babu Bajrangi, who was filmed by an Indian news magazine in 2007 describing setting families on fire, was also awarded an enhanced life sentence until death. One convict has absconded and will be sentenced once caught, defence and prosecution lawyers told AFP. Modi’s proximity to Kodnani is an embarrassment for a politician widely thought to have prime ministerial ambitions but whose reputation was tarnished by the blood-letting in 2002 only a few months after he was elected.
Delivering the judgment yesterday, the court slammed the Modi government, terming the 2002 communal conflagration as “negligence of the state” and censured it for “inaction”, holding that it had resulted in an “anarchic” situation. “Even if we, for the sake of argument, accept the defense of the state that the cause of riot was a general reaction to the Sabarmati Express incident, the failure on part of police to gather intelligence about such general reaction (after the Godhra train burning incident) in time and to take appropriate timely action definitely come within expression 'negligence of the state',” the court said.
Chief minister Narendra Modi didn't spell out any apology for the 2002 riots, during his speech. But he gave indication that he wants this history to be buried. Addressing people before starting his fast on Saturday, Modi asked them to forget the past and be part of the development spree. His choice of words and tone of speech were aimed at conveying a sense of regret, especially to the Muslim community.
First Modi must answer where are the missing children of Gujarat…he must answer what happened in 2002, he must answer who killed Haren Pandya, he must answer that why no Lokayukta in Gujarat, he must answer what CAG report says about his corrupt…before the even think to be PM
gujarat ma 2002 ma je thayu che ae aji gujarat na loko bhuli nahi sakata ane modi saheb aji aevu vichare che ke gujarat ma mare raj karavo hoy to biji var mare avo mot no khel karavo padase guajrat ma pan gujarat saraakr modi ni same tapas kem nahi karati kem modi 2002 no sacho gunegar che
2002 ma gujarat ma godhara pachi akha gujarat ma komi nikali padya aenu karan modi saheb che jemane gujarat na loko ne mraya ane marayaa che modi gujarat na raj karava aavu badhu kare che
gujarat ma modi raj chalava mate gujarat ma 2002 ma godhara kad karyo che aema modi jevano hat che modi gujarat nu nam kharab karyu che aevane jel ma puri ne fasi apvi joye
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