After spending one hundred days out on temporary bail, former Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Babu Patel alias Babu Bajrangi, a convict of 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case, on Monday returned to the Sabarmati jail here. Bajrangi was granted bail by the Gujarat High Court on April 23 for three months for the treatment of vision loss. It was then extended for another ten days.
“My father today returned to the jail, but he is blind now even after the treatment in Chennai. There is no improvement in his vision. He cannot see anything” said his son Anil Patel.
Asked if Bajrangi would seek fresh temporary bail from the High Court, Patel said, “As of now we have not thought of that, but his appeal against the conviction is pending before the High Court and we will have to see what happens. His fate depends on that appeal.”
Bajrangi is one of the 31 convicts of Naroda Patiya case which relates to massacre of 97 Muslims in Naroda Patiya area here during the post-Godhra riots in 2002. The trial court sentenced him to “imprisonment till death” in August 2012. The former VHP leader has been granted temporary bail by the HC six times on various grounds.