NEW DELHI, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- A special court in the western Indian state of Gujarat Tuesday summoned the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah as a defense witness in a riots case in the state in 2002.
The court asked Shah to appear before it either in person or through a lawyer next Monday on a request by Maya Kodnani, a former BJP minister who has been sentenced to life in jail, in one of the several Gujarat riots cases that claimed the lives of several Muslims.
Kodnani, who is currently out on bail on health grounds, claims she was not present when 11 Muslims were killed during the 2002 riots in Naroda Gram, a suburb of Gujarat's financial city of Ahmedabad, and that she was with Shah and others at a hospital that she ran at the time.
"The court has issued summons for Sept. 18. The order was passed on a request of Maya Kodnani. Shah has to testify if Kodani's claims in the case were true or false," her lawyer Amit Patel told the media.
Kodani was a BJP lawmaker at the time but later served as Minister for Women and Child Development in Gujarat led by then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, till she was arrested in 2009.
Modi's critics accuse him of keeping mum during the 2002 Gujarat riots in which over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were massacred by Hindu mobs. Modi denies any wrongdoing and has never been convicted in a court of law.
