It is now official. Dr. Mayaben Kodnani is the killer of 97 men, women and children of Naroda Patiya, a middle class Muslim suburb in Ahmedabad. Convicted on August 29 and sentenced on August 31 by a special court, the sitting BJP MLA and former minister of Narendra Modi cabinet will have to spend next 28 years in jail with other 31 co-conspirators-cum-killers.
Kodnani, a poster woman of the Sangh, is a daughter of staunch RSS worker from Sindh. So Sangh ideology of hatred is in her blood. She entered in politics with her victory in the Ahmedabad civic elections in 1995. By 1998 she emerged as an MLA. Soon she was a close confident of Modi. She was inducted in cabinet as Minister of State after the Gujarat pogrom and was also made President of Ahmedabad unit of BJP. For her rise in politics she is indebted to Mr. L.K. Advani too who is also a Sindhi migrant and played as her mentor. Kodnani, a qualified gynaecologist, and three times MLA was virtually caught red-handed during “kill Muslims” operation in Modi’s Gujarat. Many eyewitnesses stood against her in the court facing all types of threats and inducements.
In the night of February 28, 2002, a day after the Sabarmati Express train fire incidence near Godhra Railway Station in which 57 persons were killed, she along with Babu Bajrangi, a local strongman of Bajrang Dal, led some 5000 strong mob, in Naroda Patiya, to take “revenge” of Godhra from those who were living 165 km. away from the scene of the incidence. The mob horded the members of the minority community to a deep pit and killed them brutally. Many men, women and children were burned alive and thrown into a dry well. Women were gang-raped before being killed with swords and other sharp weapons and their bodies torched. The police recovered 94 bodies and three others were reported missing, but declared dead later. Over 30 others were injured. There hoses were looted and then set on fire by blasting gas cylinders found in their houses. A mosque, Noorani Masjid was also torched and bombed. Kodnani was accused of instigating the rioters, firing a pistol and even distributing arms, sharp weapons and kerosene canisters that she had transported to Naroda in her car escorted by a police gypsy.
However, the minister denied the allegations and said she had been attending the State Assembly at the time of riot but she was caught out by statements of eye-witnesses and her mobile phone records that showed she was in Naroda all the time from early morning till the evening.
The court found Kodnani guilty on various counts including criminal conspiracy, mass murder, attempt to murder and arson, and called the lady doctor – who while entering the medical profession had taken an oath to save the life of people without prejudice but the Sangh ideology converted her into what she is today – “a kingpin of riots”.
The historic judgment was delivered by Additional Principal Judge Jyotsnaben Yagnik in a packed court, under heavy security arrangements. Kodnani broke down after hearing the exemplary punishment for her guilt. She will have to serve 10 years in jail under Section 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) of IPC before her life sentence gets underway, thereby effectively getting a 28-year imprisonment. This is the first time in India that all jail terms will not run concurrently but one after another. It is also for the first time that a court has convicted a riot accused for criminal conspiracy. This is also the first time that a sitting MLA has been convicted for engineering communal violence in her own constituency.
Another high-profile accused, Babubhai Rajabhai Patel better known as Babu Bajrangi, the notorious leader of VHP, who later joined Bajrang Dal and then Shiva Sena, will spend the rest of his life in jail. Bajrangi in a Tehelka interview had fearlessly claimed that he was the man who slit open the stomach of a pregnant Muslim woman with his sword and tossed the nine-month mature foetus in the air. He was also recorded as saying on camera: ‘We drove Muslims into a deep pit and killed them’ then threw upon them burning tyres.”
He told the reporter, “After that, I called up the home minister (Heren Pandya) and Jaideep Patel (VHP leader)…and went to sleep.’ He further said, “Narendrabhai had come to Patiya… to see the thing did not stop the next day. He saw our enthusiasm and left behind a good atmosphere….” He claimed, “If I did not have his support, we could not have “avenged” Godhra. After it was over, [Modi] was happy, people were happy, we were happy… ’’ “Narendrabhai got me out of jail. He changed the judges thrice. The 4th judge, Akshay Mehta, did not even look at the file. We were all out.”
Along with Kodnani and Bajrangi, seven other accused have been given enhanced life imprisonment and they will have to first serve a 10-year term under Section 326 before their life sentences begin. Twenty-two others have been handed down simple life imprisonment of 14 years while 29 accused were acquitted on the ground of lack of clinching evidence against them.
Learned Judge Jyotsnaben Yagnik observed, “Communal riots are like cancer on constitutional secularism and incident that happened in Naroda Patiya was a black chapter in the history of the Indian Constitution.
“Acts of communal violence was brutal, inhuman and shameful, it was a clear incident of human rights violation as 97 people were killed brutally within the day which included helpless women, children, aged persons and the climax of this inhuman and brutal act of violence was reflected in murder of an infant who was just 20 days old,” the court said highlighting the enormity of the crime.
Judge Yagnik also ordered the Gujarat government to pay a compensation of Rs five lakh to a victim of gangrape but did not charge anybody for the offence for want of evidence.
The court dismissed Kodnani’s plea that she was a victim of politics. “Maya Kodnani was tremendously favoured by the then investigating agencies. All care, at the cost of the duty of the IO (investigating officer) and even the interest of the victims of crime, was taken to see to it that the involvement of A-37 does not come on the books. This fact, in fact, comes in the way to believe that A-37 was ever a victim of any politics.
“Their dastardly act by killing as many as 96 victims by burning them alive at the site of the Muslim chawls itself is a horrifying and terrifying commission of offences. The ‘khancha’ where 58 alone were done away (with) by reducing them to grilled meat can be visualised as a ghastly site where maximum number of victims died, human limbs were found scattered here and there, those who could fortunately survive, tried to save the unfortunate, severely injured victims from the flames… some of whom ultimately succumbed… before getting treatment,” the court said.
Though maintaining that death penalty was “desirable” to reduce crime in the society, the court said it believes that such a punishment “undermines human dignity”.
“Death penalty brings justice and it is desirable to reduce the crime in the society but this court cannot overlook the global trend prevalent in recent years as by 2009, 139 countries have repealed death sentence and there is a global campaign against death penalty and progressive societies are advocating for restricting death penalty and this court believes use of death undermines human dignity.”
It rejected the defence argument that communal violence in Naroda Patiya was a reaction to Godhra train burning incident.
“This was a pre-planned conspiracy and it cannot be mitigated just by saying that it was a reaction of Godhra train burning incident,” it said.
It is worth mentioning that Modi and the Gujarat BJP had repeatedly claimed the riots were “a spontaneous reaction to the Godhra train incidence and the state government and ruling party had nothing to do with it”.
Bajrangi had also firmed up the theory of conspiracy in his interview to Tahelka. He was shown on camera claiming that the carnage was planned in advance. His men had collected arms and combustible material like kerosene, patrol and diesel from pumps a day before the carnage.
It must also be noted that within minutes of the unfortunate train fire at Godhra, VHP and BJP spread the rumour that those killed were “kar sewaks” dedicated to build a Huge Ram Mandir at the site where Babri Masjid stood till 6 December 1992 and was razed in broad daylight by a frenzied mob of Hindutva activists. This claim of killed people being kar sewaks is yet to be substantiated. The bodies of train victims were illegally handed over to VHP activists by State Government who carried them all over the state in processions to injure feelings of innocent masses, and instigate them for violence. The gruesome act was aimed to polarise them into Hindu and Muslim for the benefit in Assembly Elections.
The investigation of the carnage cases was handled originally by the Gujarat Police, but after it was felt that police investigation is not impartial, the Supreme Court appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe nine riot cases, including the Naroda Patiya incident. This is the third such case in which judgment has come. In Sardarpura case the court had convicted 31 persons; in Dipda Darwaja case 22 had been convicted, most of them given life imprisonment.
This judgement of Naroda Patiya suggests that Kodnani was part of a conspiracy hatched by powerful persons connected with the ruling dispensation to target the minority. The conviction of Kishan Korani, a BJP member of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and BJP and VHP leaders Bipin Panchal and Ashok Sindhi with her, supports the theory of conspiracy. But reacting on the judgment, the Gujarat Cabinet spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas painted the crime as “individual action” of convicts. He said it could not be construed as a “cumulative responsibility of the Cabinet.” This is not a new argument. It has been the set policy of Sangh Parivar since 1927, not to own disruptive collective as acts of the organisation but to attribute them as the act of “individuals”. The rule is, “RSS does nothing, all is done by Swayam Sevaks in their personal capacity.”
However as The Hindu commented, “The establishment of conspiracy augurs well for the future of communal violence prosecutions, where the judicial trend so far has been to uphold murder but not conspiracy. It is a victory particularly for the SIT…. For the families of the Naroda victims, who identified the aggressors braving threats and intimidation and who were able to come forward to some extent because of the protection offered by the apex court, there cannot be a greater vindication than the trial court finding evidence of rape and molestation.
“It has been their plaintive cry that the violence was orchestrated and targeted against women, who were subjected to gang rape and worse before being slaughtered. Violence against women is a pattern established over and over in anti-minority pogroms, and the judgment has done yeoman service in foregrounding this fact.
“Needless to say, the conviction is a huge setback to the Gujarat Chief Minister personally. The fact that Ms Kodnani led the Naroda killings was common knowledge, yet Mr. Modi made her a minister, even putting her in charge of ‘women and child development’ as if to thumb his nose at the victims. A bigger worry for Mr. Modi ought to be the establishment of conspiracy.
“It stretches credulity that Ms Kodnani could enter into a conspiracy with her co-accused without the government getting a whiff of the group’s criminal intentions and conduct, before, during and after the killing.”
[syyedagha@hotmail.com]