Gujarat Riots: Amit Shah Gives Kodnani an Alibi in Naroda Gam Case

Shah said that Kodnani was in the state assembly at 8.30 am the day the riots broke out in Naroda Gam.

File photo of Amit Shah.

(Photo: PTI) 

On Monday, BJP chief Amit Shah appeared in an Ahmedabad sessions court as a witness for Maya Kodnani in Gujarat’s Naroda Gam riot case.

Maya Kodnani was not present in Naroda Gam, she was inside the state assembly at 8:30 am... From 9:30 am to 9:45 am, I was at the Sola Civil Hospital and I met Kodnani there.

Shah told the court that cops escorted him and Kodnani to a safe place as agitated crowds surrounded them at the hospital.

I was surrounded by people when I left the hospital. Maya Kodnani and I were taken to our respective cars in a police jeep. It was 11-11:15 am that time.

Shah told court that he does not know where Kodnani went from the Civil Hospital after police escorted them away.

Kodnani’s lawyers told the court that Shah had been inaccessible, after which he was issued summons to appear before the court, as the Indian Express reported.

A special court hearing the 2002 Naroda Gam massacre case in Ahmedabad in April had allowed an application filed by former BJP MLA Maya Kodnani seeking to call BJP President Amit Shah and 13 others as defence witnesses to prove she was not present at the scene of the incident.

Judge PB Desai said that summons should be issued to these witnesses “at appropriate and relevant stage of trial.”

Kodnani, sentenced to 28 years in jail in the Naroda Gam riot case, is currently out on bail.

Her application said she wanted Shah’s examination to prove that she had met him in the Assembly in Gandhinagar and then at Sola Civil Hospital that day as the bodies of Godhra train incident victims were brought there.

Afterwards, she went to her nursing home and then to main civil hospital in Asarwa area of the city, Kodnani claimed.

To prove this, she wanted to summon 13 other people, including former BJP MLA Amrish Patel, the then superintendent of civil hospital Dr Anil Chaddha, staff of her hospital and a man whose child was allegedly born at her hospital that day.

The Naroda Gam massacre was one of the nine major riot cases in Gujarat investigated by a Special Investigation Team.

Eleven people belonging to the minority community were killed at Naroda Gam. A total of 82 people are facing trial.

(With inputs from PTI)

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