BJP president Amit Shah today appeared before a special SIT court here as a defence witness for former BJP Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani in the 2002 Naroda Gam riot case. Shah's deposition started before Judge P B Desai who had last Tuesday summoned him in response to an application filed by Kodnani. ANI picture
Amit Shah, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president on Monday said that he had seen Mayaben Kodnani, the accused in 2002 Naroda Gam case in which 11 persons were killed, in Gujarat Assembly and then at Sola Civil Hospital.
Amit Shah said this deposing in the special designated court of Justice P B Desai, Shah submitted before the court in Gujarati that, “Mayaben was not at Naroda Gam but at the state Assembly at 8.30 am. Later, I was at the (Sola) Civil Hospital where I met Maya Kodnani.”
Shah said that he was visiting Sola civil hospital as it was under his electoral constituency. It is at this hospital that the bodies of Godhra train massacre victims had been brought. He said that Kodnani was consoling families of those killed in Godhra attack when he reached there.
“Amit Shah said that he had seen Mayaben at Assembly at 8.30 and at the civil hospital at around 11.15 to 11.30 am. When asked where she was in the interim, Amit Shah said that he had no inkling about her whereabouts for three to three-and-a-half hours,” Shamshad Pathan, a lawyer for families of victims of Naroda Gam, told media persons.
The incident occurred on February 28, 2002, a day after a bogey of Sabarmati Express train was set on fire near Godhra Railway station, resulting in deaths of 58 karsevaks returning from Ayodhya temple.
Shah was appearing before the court following summons issued in the 2002 Naroda Gam case. He was issued a summon after Maya Kodnani claimed that despite repeated attempts she had failed to get BJP chief to depose as her defence witness and prove her alibi that she was not present at the scene of violence. Kodnani, who is one of the 82 accused, had enlisted 14 witnesses, 13 of whom had already deposed before Shah did on Monday.
In all 187 witnesses have been examined by the prosecution, while the defence side has examined 58 witnesses in the incident so far. When SIT prosecution lawyer asked Shah why he had not testified in another riot case of Naroda Patiya in which Kodnani was found guilty and sentenced to 28 years in jail, Shah said that he was neither summoned nor approached by prosecution or defence.
In Naroda Patiya, located next to Naroda Gam, almost 100 persons from the minority community were killed in violence on the same day as Naroda Gam.
“Now that Shah’s statement has been taken, the case is now in argument’s stage and the court would most likely deliver its judgement and the victims who have been suffering for last 15 years would finally receive justice,” Pathan said.
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