Ahmedabad, India: An Indian court granted bail on Wednesday to an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was convicted and jailed for her role in the deadly religious riots in Gujarat in 2002.
Maya Kodnani, who served as a minister in the Gujarat state government then led by Modi, was sentenced to a minimum of 28 years in jail in 2012 over the killing of 97 Muslims in the worst massacre during the riots.
“The court has granted our request and granted regular bail on health grounds,” Kodnani’s lawyer V.S. Raju told reporters outside the court in Gujarat’s main city of Ahmedabad.
Raju had urged the judges to grant bail to Kodnani for medical treatment, saying she was suffering from ongoing heart and stomach problems as well as depression.
It is unclear how long she will be released for.
Kodnani, who served as women and child development minister in Modi’s state government from 2007-2009, has been granted bail for several months in the past for health reasons.
The 59-year-old former politician was accused by the sentencing judge in 2012 of being “the kingpin of the religious riots”.
She was found guilty of murder and other charges including inciting religious hatred over the massacre that occurred in the Naroda Patiya suburb of Ahmedabad.
Modi himself, who ruled Gujarat for more than 10 years, has been dogged by claims that he failed to do enough to stop the riots despite being cleared by a Supreme Court probe of any wrongdoing.
Kodnani was among 32 people convicted over the riots that swept across Gujarat and killed at least 1,000 people in total, mostly Muslims.
Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party won the biggest mandate in 30 years in the April-May national elections, has maintained that he moved to end the bloodshed as swiftly as possible.
