Kodnani gets 28 years to reflect on secularism

The Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] MLA and former minister in the Narendra Modi government Maya Kodnani and 30 others were sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday by a special court, which described the Naroda Patiya massacre of 97 Muslims during the 2002 riots as 'a black chapter in the history of Indian constitution'.

The additional principal judge Jyotsna Yagnik dubbed communal riots as 'a cancer on constitutional secularism' and Kodnani the 'kingpin' of the Naroda Patiya carnage and sentenced her to 18 years life imprisonment.

She will, however, have to serve 10 years in jail under Section 326 [voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means] of the Indian Penal Code [IPC] before her life sentence gets underway, thereby effectively getting a 28-year imprisonment.

Another high-profile accused, Babu Bajrangi, the notorious leader of the Bajrang Dal, will spend the rest of his life in jail. 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.

Coming in an election year, the verdict that has established for the first time involvement of a senior BJP leader in the post-Godhra conflagration, may have an adverse fallout on Modi's efforts to remove the taint of the communal riots.

'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,' the judge observed.

'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 20 days old,' the court said highlighting the enormity of the crime.

Yagnik also ordered the Gujarat government to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to a victim of gang rape but did not charge anybody for the offence for want of evidence.

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,' the court said.

It rejected the defence's 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.