Like Friday, members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) kept on waiting for state minister Maya Kodnani at the Gandhinagar office till late on Saturday, but in vain. According to sources, the SIT now contemplates taking legal action against her.The Supreme Court-appointed team had summoned Kodnani, Minister of State for Women, Child Development and Higher Education, Gujarat, in connection with the 2002 Naroda Gam and Naroda Patiya riot cases.According to the summon, Kodnani was supposed to appear before the SIT on Friday. But instead, she chose to attend meetings at Godhra on that day, while the investigators waited for her. The minister seemed unfazed of this and failed to turn up before the SIT even on Saturday.Kodnani could not be contacted despite several attempts today. The SIT had also summoned VHP leader Jaydeep Patel, who appeared before the SIT on Friday.The minister is accused of inciting and instigating the raging mob to attack members of the minority community at Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam. The incidents had taken place on February 28, 2002, a day after the Sabarmati Express carnage incident at Godhra. Several riot victims had named Kodnani as one of those who egged on the violent mobs, even as she had been maintaining that she was not present at Naroda when the riots broke out. The names of both Patel and Kodnani had figured in the original FIR lodged in the Naroda Gam case in 2002. However, on September 4, 2002 the Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch filed a summary report in the court pleading to close the case on the grounds that the FIR had been merged with the police FIR pertaining to the killing of eight people at Naroda Gam. It had said the names of both Patel and Kodnani should be removed, as there was no evidence against them.
