The Supreme Court on Thursday granted bail to Babubhai Patel alias Babu Bajrangi, the Bajrang Dal leader who is serving life term after being convicted in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riots case, on medical grounds.
A Bench headed by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar gave the order based on the bail plea of Bajrangi which stated that he was unwell for a long time and also had undergone bypass surgery.
Role in violence
In August 2012, a special SIT court sentenced Bajrangi to life imprisonment for his role in the communal violence that took place in the Naroda Patiya locality of Ahmedabad during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The case pertains to the killing of 97 people, most of them from the minority community, in the Naroda Patiya area on February 28, 2002, a day after the Sabarmati Express was torched at Godhra, an incident that triggered riots across the State in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
The Gujarat High Court had in April last year upheld the conviction.
