Amritsar/Punjab (August 29, 2012): Dal Khalsa has hailed the Ahmedabad special court verdict in which Maya Kodnani, BJP MLA and former minister in the Narendra Modi government, and a Bajrang Dal leader is also convicted besides 30 others in the 2002 Naroda Patiya violence case. The genocidal violence had claimed the life of 97 people belonging to the minority community were killed.
Trial court’s judge Jyotsna Yagnik held Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi guilty under sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder) of IPC in the post-Godhra riots case, while acquitting 29 others.
The quantum of sentence is likely to be announced later. The massacre had taken place a day after the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, 2002.
Dal Khalsa’s spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh on August 29, 2012 said “the anti-minority mask from the BJP’s face has been blown up.”
He said the verdict has vindicated what was “talk of the town”.
Kanwar Pal Singh has criticized the Punjab chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for maintaining close relations with BJP as well as Narindra Modi.
“Taking a dig at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s love for BJP, he asked them to explain the difference between Congress and BJP vis-a-vis massacres of minorities” reports Times of India (TOI).
“Everyone knew BJP’s poster boy Modi was behind the Gujarat carnage,” he is reported to have said.
Kanwar Pal Singh further added that what Congress did with Sikhs in 1984, the BJP did the same with Muslims in 2002.
He said that Badal Dal’s continuous alliance with the BJP was fraught with danger as the the party claim to draw strength from Sikh masses.
Ironically, the Sikh fight for justice loses its relevance and zeal as Badal Dal was seen to be standing with a party at national level that has been responsible for engineering the massacre of Muslim minority, Kanwar Pal Singh is reported to have said.