Ahmedabad: A local court has approved a plea by Dr. Maya Kodnani, former Gujarat Minister and a key convict in the Naroda Patiya massacre case of the 2002 State riots, to call BJP chief Amit Shah as defence witness in the Naroda Gam massacre case, in which she is a key accused.
A special trial court Judge P. D. Desai on Wednesday directed that Mr. Shah and others can be summoned as witnesses “at the appropriate stage of trial.”
Dr. Kodnani has contended that she was in the Assembly at the time of the massacre, in which 11 persons of a minority community were killed and 80 persons are being tried for their murder.
She has told the court Mr. Shah can vouch that she was at the State Assembly, and, later, at the Sola Civil Hospital, where bodies of victims of Godhra train burning incident were brought.
She has also said that she subsequently went to a nursing home that she used to run.
Besides Mr. Shah, Dr. Kodani has also sought the court’s permission to call former BJP legislator Amrish Patel; Dr. Anil Chadha, the then head of Ahmedabad civil hospital; and staff of her own hospital in Naroda, northern Ahmedabad.
