Maya Kodnani jailed for 18 yrs in Guj riots case: TV

A special court on Friday sentenced former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani to 18 years in prison for her role in one of India's worst religious riots, television channels said.

Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for lawmaker Kodnani, who was among a group charged with "beating, cutting down, burning alive and causing the deaths of women, men and children", according to the charge sheet, in an episode of the Gujarat bloodletting known as the Naroda Patiya massacre.

Kodnani and 31 others were convicted by the court in Ahmedabad for their role in the episode in which 97 people were killed.

Kodnani's conviction comes as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prepares for elections in Gujarat. Narendra Modi, leader of the economic powerhouse state, is often touted as a future prime minister.

One witness alleged Kodnani, who became a minister in the state government five years after the riots, identified Muslim targets to be attacked and at one point fired a pistol.

Human rights groups say about 2,500 people, mostly Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death in Gujarat after a suspected Muslim mob burned alive 59 Hindu activists and pilgrims inside a train in February 2002.

The Congress party, in power nationally, signalled the case would likely feature in its Gujarat election campaign, saying Kodnani's conviction was proof of the BJP's involvement in the riots.

The BJP said the court ruling was proof that the state's criminal justice system was free from bias.

The savagery of the killings still haunts a country that has witnessed many bouts of religious and ethnic violence since independence from Britain in 1947.

Modi, who was chief minister at the time of the riots, has been accused by critics of turning a blind eye to the violence.