Naroda Gam Riot Case: Court Summons Amit Shah As Witness For Maya Kodnani

A special court hearing the 2002 Naroda Gam riot case today (12 September) summoned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah to appear before it as a defence witness for former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani, who is one of the prime accused, said a PTI report.

On a petition filed by Kodnani, Special Investigation Team (SIT) judge P B Desai summoned Shah to appear before the court on 18 September.

The court had in April allowed Kodnani’s plea to have the summons issued to Shah and some others as witnesses in her defence.

Kodnani, in her application to prove her innocence, said that on the day of the incident, she had visited Sola civil hospital after attending the state legislative assembly.

She claimed in the application that Shah, who was a member of legislative assembly at that time, was also present at the hospital, where bodies of 'karsevaks' killed in the Sabarmati train burning incident were brought from Godhra.

Kodnani said Shah’s testimony will help prove her alibi, said the PTI report.

The massacre in Naroda Gam in Ahmedabad is one of the nine major 2002 communal riot cases under investigation by the SIT.

Eleven persons belonging to the minority community were killed in Naroda Gam in the riots during a bandh called to protest the Godhra train burning incident.

Kodnani, who was then a minister in the Narendra Modi-led state government, has already been convicted and sentenced to 28 years in jail in the case of riots at Naroda Patiya, where 97 people were massacred.

Also Read:

Case Against Maya Kodnani, Convicted In 2002 Riots, Has Gaping Holes

Judge Jyotsna Yagnik’s Legal Acrobatics In The Maya Kodnani Case Of 2002