(LiveMint)
The Gujarat high court on Friday acquitted former state minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Maya Kodnani in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case in which 97 people were killed by a mob, but upheld the conviction of former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi.
The high court upheld the convictions of 13 people including Bajrangi and convicted three others for the first time while acquitting 18 of the 32 people convicted by the trial court in 2012. Kodnani had been found guilty by the trial court and sentenced to 28 years’ imprisonment. She was out on bail and had challenged the verdict in the high court.
Bajrangi had been sentenced to a life term. The high court reduced his sentence to 21 years. “The court found Babu Bajrangi, along with Suresh Chhara and Prakash Rathod, to be part of the criminal conspiracy… the court said that his (Bajrangi’s) crime was similar to those of the others convicted and hence his sentence has now been fixed at 21 years,” said Prashant Desai, government counsel.
