In this paper, we establish a bang-bang principle of time optimal controls for a controlled parabolic equation of fractional order evolved in a bounded domain Ω of R^n, with a controller w to be any given nonempty open subset of Ω. The problem is reduced to a new controllability property for this equation, i.e. the null controllability of the system at any given time T 〉 0 when the control is restricted to be active in ω× E, where E is any given subset of [0, T] with positive (Legesgue) measure. The desired controllability result is established by means of a sharp observability estimate on the eigenfunctions of the Dirichlet Laplacian due to Lebeau and Robbiano, and a delicate result in the measure theory due to Lions.