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Naroda Patiya case: Mayaben Kodnani's fate hangs in balance

Author: Uday Mahurkar
Publication: India Today
Date: May 25, 2013
URL: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/naroda-patiya-case-mayaben-kodnani-judgement-narendra-modi-gujarat-riots/1/273065.html

There is a lot of consternation in the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat over the future of former BJP state minister Mayaben Kodnani.

Mayaben was sentenced to 28 years of imprisonment by a special court late last year in the 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre in what was a most controversial judgement in recent judicial history for its severity as well as thin evidence.

A mob of over 15,000 Hindus on February 28, 2002 killed as many as 95 Muslims at Naroda Patiya in east Ahmedabad following the massacre at Godhra railway station, a day earlier.

The judgement against Kodnani had surprised many in the legal world as well as the Sangh Parivar as it overlooked crucial evidence in the case.

The Gujarat government, whose public prosecutors in all the 2002 Gujarat riots cases being probed by the SC-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) were appointed by the SIT, is yet to go in appeal against the judgement. But Kodnani has recently moved an application for bail in the Gujarat high court even as she remains behind bars for nine months now.

Significantly, Kodnani's application for bail moved in the Gujarat High Court recently revealed why there was disquiet over the judgement.

"The application is an eye-opener and indicates that the entire judgement was based on presumptions and assumptions. It is a travesty of justice," said Hasmukh Patel, a senior lawyer of the Gujarat High Court who has studied the case. Patel's strong stance is not without basis.

Of the 170 witnesses in the case only 11 say that they saw Kodnani at Naroda Patiya around 9 am on February 28. And of these only two say that Maya Kodnani had taken part in the rioting. One of these two, who said she had seen Kodnani firing from a revolver, had in fact given a media interview in 2002 itself about the Naroda Patiya massacre but had not named Kodnani in it. Significantly, these 11 witnesses surfaced six and a half years after the incident thus giving grist to the charge they were tutored by anti-RSS activists.

According to Natubhai Vaghela, a businessman and RSS supporter, the most questionable part is the time sequence given in the verdict which is just unbelievable. The judgement agrees with Kodnani that she was at Gujarat Vidhan Sabha's morning session in Gandhinagar on February 28 till 8.40 am.

But, thereafter, it believes the witnesses' incredible story that Mayaben reached Naroda Patiya, a distance of 27 kms from Gandhinagar in just 20 minutes, instigated the Hindu mobs and came to Sola Civil Hospital scaling 24 kilometres of circuitous route through the city to see the dead bodies of the 59 Hindus and then scaled the same distance back to reach Narodagam (an area which is just 2.25 kms from Naroda Patiya where Muslims were killed too) between 10.30 and 11 am, and again instigated the Hindu crowd.

So what the judgement says in effect is that Kodnani scaled a distance of 75 kilometres in 90 to 100 minutes and in between instigated Hindu mobs at two different places and also met the relatives of the 59 slain Hindus at the hospital.

"Mayaben should have had feathers to fly to be able to scale that distance and do all that in less than 100 minutes," observed Patel. Interestingly, Kodnani had claimed that she started from Gandhinagar at 8.40 am for Sola Civil to meet the relatives of the 59 Hindus who were killed and left the place only at 11 am. Surprisingly, the evidence of four government personnel including an executive magistrate who said they had seen Kodnani at Sola till 11 am was overlooked in the verdict.

But there are other details in the case that question the conspiracy theory. The scene in the Naroda area on March 28 morning was restricted to just stone pelting between Hindu and Muslim mobs till 10.30 am, when two Hindus were killed by Muslims in different incidents and one of them with horrid cruelty.

"These two incidents sent the Hindu mobs into a reactive frenzy and led to the massacres at Naroda Patiya and Narodagam areas in close vicinity of each other," aid lawyer Mitesh Amin.

In the first case, rickshaw driver Ranjit Vanjara was pulled by a Muslim mob in a lane and killed. Even his eyes were gorged out. In the second incident, a frightened Muslim truck driver drove his truck through a Hindu mob killing a Hindu. Both these incidents happened between 10.30 and 11.30 am on that morning and are on police record. "Where does Mayaben figure in this?", asked a distraught Dr Surendra Kodnani, a medical practitioner like his wife who is moving heaven and earth to ensure that Mayaben gets bail on this strong evidence.
 
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