Maya Kodnani was a BJP politician and close aide of Narendra Modi, found guilty in 2012 along with various other Sangh Parivar leaders of orchestrating the killing of 97 people in the Naroda Patiya massacre. She was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
According to multiple witnesses, during the Gujarat pogroms of 2002, Kodnani moved around the city of Ahmedabad distributing weapons and exhorting mobs to kill Muslims. After the violence she rose to prominence in the BJP and in 2007 she was appointed as Minister for Women and Child Development in Modi's goverment, despite evidence in the form of a Gujarat goverment affidavit that the state government knew of her involvement in the massacre.
After her sentencing, VHP leader Pravin Togadia said: she "stood up for her religion... she is the daughter of 100 crore [1 billion] Hindus. We stand with her". In 2018, Kodnani was acquitted by a Gujarat High Court. The court claimed that the 11 witnesses who testified against Kodnani were "unreliable".