Gujarat minister arrested over religious riots case

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - Police arrested the child welfare minister of Gujarat on Friday for leading a mob that attacked Muslims during one of the country's worst religious riots seven years ago, officials said.

The arrest of Mayaben Kodnani is an embarrassment for the state's ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the country's April/May parliamentary election.

Some victims and witnesses alleged that Kodnani led a Hindu mob that killed more than 100 people on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2002, police said in the charge sheet against her.

"The charges against Mayaben Kodnani includes abetment to murder, conspiracy to kill people and use of firearms," Mitesh Amin, Kodnani's lawyer, told reporters after her arrest.

Kodnani has said she was innocent and being framed.

Human rights groups say about 2,500 people, mostly Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death in Gujarat after a suspected Muslim mob burnt alive 59 Hindu activists and pilgrims inside a train in February 2002.

The Supreme Court has criticised the Gujarat government for failing to protect Muslims and compared its chief minister Narendra Modi to the Roman emperor Nero, said to have played the lyre while Rome burned.

Kodnani, who resigned as child welfare minister an hour before her arrest, was taken into custody after her bail plea was rejected in court.

Another accused, Jaidip Patil, leader of the hardline Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad, was also arrested over the same case.