General

Former Indian minister among those found guilty of Gujarat deaths

Maya Kodnani was a state legislator at the time of the 2002 outbreak of religious violence

32 people, including a former state minister, were found guilty by a court in western India for charges from murder to rioting for religious violence that occurred in 2002.

The violence was some of the country’s worst since its independence from Britain in the late 40s. It started with a train fire in February 2002 that killed 60 Hindu pilgrims. Muslims were blamed, which led to weeks of rioting, Hindu mobs rampaging and burning Muslim homes and businesses.

More than 1,100 people were killed or went mission, most of whom were Muslim.

Maya Kodnani is included among the convicted, a state legislator at the time who then became minister of education and child welfare in Gujarat state government. In 2009, she was arrested for murder and criminal conspiracy and has been jailed since.

The court has acquitted 29 others and hasn’t yet announced the sentences.

The convictions in this case were for murders and rioting in Naroda Patiya, an industrial town outside of Ahmadabad, Gujarat’s main city. 95 people died.

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