Nagpur: Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Gujarat unit has said that it is against the awarding of capital punishment to former minister Maya Kodnani and others in connection with 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case.
“We had opposed the move of the state government to challenge the verdict of the trial court in Naroda Patiya riots which sentenced Kodnani to life imprisonment and was to appeal for capital punishment,” Parishad leader Pravin Togadia said on Wednesday in Nagpur.
On Tuesday, the Gujarat government withheld the plea seeking death penalty for Maya Kodnani and nine others. The Gujarat government had last month allowed the Supreme Court appointed SIT to seek death penalty for Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and eight others in Gujarat High Court.
In August last year (2012), trial court Judge Jyostna Yagnik sentenced Kodnani to 28 years jail, while Bajrangi was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison. Eight others were awarded 31-year imprisonment, while 22 convicts got 24 years prison term.
As many as 97 people were brutally killed in Naroda Patiya locality of Ahmedabad by a violent mob on February 28, 2002, a day after the Godhra train carnage triggered communal riots in Gujarat.
