Ahmedabad, March 27: The Gujarat High Court order cancelling the anticipatory bail of state minister Maya Kodanani could just be the first step in the downfall of several other VIPs involved in the 2002 riots cases, legal experts here said.

Mukul Sinha, a lawyer representing riot victims, said the heat could now be on several BJP and VHP leaders, who could be implicated on the basis of their cellphone records like Kodanani.

The high court has accepted the evidence of the special investigation team (SIT) in the form of cellphone transcripts which purportedly show Kodanani was at Naroda Patia and Naroda village when a mob descended on Muslim residents there on February 28, 2002, killing at least 106.

Kodanani’s lawyers had claimed the evidence was not substantial and that she was not present at the site.

“The mobile phone records of several BJP and VHP leaders may lead to more arrests,” said Sinha, who had submitted to the SIT the CD containing the cellphone records of Kodanani and fellow accused Jaideep Patel of the VHP.

Sources said the role of P.C. Pande, a former Gujarat director-general of police, could also come under the glare.

Pande, who was eased out of the DGP’s post recently, was the Ahmedabad city commissioner in 2002 when the Gulbarg Society in Meghaninagar, less than two kilometres from the police headquarters, was attacked. Former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffry and 38 others were killed in the attack.

Chief minister Narendra Modi last month moved Pande to the anti-corruption bureau and replaced him with S.S. Khandwawala, the first Muslim to head Gujarat police.

Legal experts said that with today’s order, it would become difficult for the VHP and Sangh parivar accused to defend themselves on the grounds that the rioting was “spontaneous”. “Today’s order makes it clear that everything was planned and engineered,” said a lawyer.

Justice D.H. Vaghela has termed the rioting “heinous” in his order.

The ruling is also embarrassing for Justice G.T. Nanavati, probing the Godhra train burning and the riots that followed. Nanavati had given a clean chit to the government in the first part of his report. “His conclusion now rings hollow,” said a lawyer.

Riot victims, who had almost given up hope, now feel they are a step closer to justice.

For the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani — Kodanani’s mentor — the ruling could not have come at a worse time.

“With a minister in the dock, it will now find it difficult to explain to the people that the VHP and BJP had nothing to do with riots,” said a political observer. Advani will have a lot of explaining to do for shielding Kodanani, who was the only Sindhi member in Modi’s ministry.