Where is Maya Kodnani?

Facing murder charges in cases dating to the communal riots of 2002 in Naroda Patiya,Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani has been associated with the RSS since her childhood and became a BJP corporator in 1995

Dr Maya Kodnani,a gynaecologist who ran her own clinic while also servingas a minister in the Gujarat government has been declared an absconder by the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team SIT after she failed to turn up along with VHP leader Jaydeep Patel despite repeated notices for her role in the communal riots of 2002 in Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam.

The daughter of a teacher and an RSS worker,Kodnani received her early education in a school in Deesa,a dusty town between Ahmedabad and the pilgrimage centre of Ambaji,in Banaskantha district. The Gujarati-medium school had been set up and run by her father.

Kodnani,according to her family friends,had been actively associated with the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti the womens wing of the RSS ever since she joined the Baroda Medical College. She continued her association with the RSS even after she returned to Ahmedabad to set up her Shivam Maternity Hospital in Kubernagar in Naroda area,which has a sizeable Sindhi population,about 20 years ago. A good orator,Kodnani soon became popular among the local Sangh leaders. It was no surprise when she became the first choice of the BJP when it decided to field a woman candidate for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation AMC elections from the Saijpur ward in 1995. She won the AMC elections by a huge margin,and she was appointed the deputy chairperson of AMCs health committee. From 1997 to 1998,she was appointed as the first woman chairperson of AMCs Standing Committee.From then on,her political graph went upward. In the 1998 Assembly elections she was elected as BJP legislator from the Naroda seat.

Though she was alleged to have played a role in massacre of minority community members in Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam,she again won the Assembly elections in December 2007 by 1.80 lakh votes,the highest winning margin in the state.

Her political career got another boost when she was inducted as a minister in Narendra Modis Cabinet reportedly at the behest of BJP stalwart L K Advani. With this,she became the first Sindhi leaders to have been given ministerial portfolio ever since the state came into existence in 1960. However,her problems started with the appointment of the SIT on the Supreme Courts orders to probe the 10 most heinous post-Godhra riot cases,including those in Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam. As there were discrepancies between her statements given to SIT investigators on December 28,2008 and her cellphone records about her movements on February 28,2002,the day riots broke out in Naroda Patiya,the SIT summoned her again on January 29 and January 31 to question her. Her statements also differed from the depositions made by a police inspector during the riots. It is believed she went underground on February 2,2009.