Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, who is serving a 21-year prison sentence, was granted by bail on medical grounds by the Supreme Court on Thursday, 7 March. Bajrangi was convicted by a trial court in 2012 for his role in the 2002 Naroda Patiya Massacre which claimed 97 lives and sentenced him to life imprisonment till death.
All 30 people were convicted in the case, including former BJP MLA Maya Kodnani. However, Kodnani was acquitted by the Gujarat High Court in April 2018, while Bajrangi’s sentence was commuted to 21 years imprisonment without remission.
Bajrangi, who has been an inmate of Sabarmati Prison since 2012, filed a bail plea in Supreme Court in October 2018. He pleaded through his counsel that he had gone 80 percent blind, completely deaf and bedridden in a hospital.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)