Babu Bajrangi moves HC for bail on health grounds

Ahmedabad

Babu Bajrangi, convicted and sentenced to life in prison in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riot in the city, has moved the Gujarat High Court seeking temporary bail for 45 days on medical grounds.

In his application submitted last week, Bajrangi pleaded that he needs to undergo treatment for his ailments caused due to food poisoning, for which, he was recently taken to a civil hospital by Sabarmati jail authorities here.

While hearing his plea seeking interim bail for 45 days today, the high court bench of Justice S R Brahmbhatt and Justice K J Thaker asked the Special Investigation Team (SIT) as well as the Superintendent of civil hospital to submit results of all the medical tests conducted on Bajrangi and adjourned the hearing till 14 December.

Bajrangi is one of the 31 convicts in Naroda Patiya riot case. In the riot there, 97 people were killed. He had been awarded “imprisonment till death” by a special trial court in August 2012.

Bajrangi had challenged his conviction in the high court, which is pending at present.

The VHP leader had been granted temporary bail by the Gujarat High Court six times in the past on various grounds.

Naroda Patiya is one of the nine cases probed by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT.

The violence at Naroda Patiya area had broken out a day after the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express was burnt near Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, which claimed lives of 58 kar sevaks.

PTI