Her conviction is an embarrassment for both the BJP - the country's main opposition party - and Gujarat's high-flying chief minister, Narendra Modi, who is lauded by foreign companies for his business-friendly policies and is often touted as the country's next prime minister. When the sentences were announced, a wail erupted from a crowd of women relatives of the convicted gathered outside the courthouse in Ahmedabad, the western state's main city.
Most relatives of the victims stayed away, a sign that 10 years on, memories of the bloodletting by Hindu mobs still cast a pall of fear over the state's Muslim community. "We're not risking our lives by going there today. It'll be like walking into a lion's mouth," Nazir Khan, a school teacher in Naroda Patiya, a suburb of Ahmedabad, told Reuters.
Kodnani, Gujarat state's minister for women and child development from 2007 to 2009, was the highest-profile figure to be convicted in connection with the riots. Modi appointed her as a minister in his government despite the fact she had already been implicated in the killings, although she was not arrested until 2009.
Witnesses told investigators that 57-year-old Kodnani, a gynaecologist, played a leading role in the massacre of 95 people - 30 men, 32 women and 33 children - in Naroda Patiya. Kodnani handed out swords to Hindu rioters, exhorted them to attack Muslims and at one point fired a pistol, according to witness statements seen by Reuters. Also on the bus was Babubai Bajrangi, a Hindu nationalist firebrand who was accused of disembowelling a pregnant woman with a sword. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.