The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Sunday, May 5, 2002, Chandigarh, India

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Godhra reports stun Centre
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 4
The Vajpayee government is flummoxed and fuming at reports emanating from Gujarat that there is no evidence yet to suggest that the February 27 Godhra carnage was the result of a premeditated conspiracy with the involvement of external agencies.

On the contrary, central agencies had so far fathomed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was indeed involved in the conspiracy, a top source in the government asserted here today.

A major turning point in the investigations would come if the involvement of Pakistan-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was established. The local underworld don, Bilal Haji, among the 59 accused arrested and suspected to be the local mastermind of the Godhra carnage, was known to have close links with Dawood Ibrahim.

Sources said in case links of Dawood Ibrahim were to be proved true, it would shed an entirely different light on the Godhra incident.

Significantly, sources said, the courts had rejected bail applications of all the arrested accused, except two minors.

Among those arrested were two persons having connections with the now-banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), who had been extensively questioned. These two SIMI activists were from Kolkata and Bhadohi (UP). The investigators were working on a number of leads. The very nature of leads was time-consuming, with police teams visiting several parts of the country. A number of persons connected with the incident and the conspiracy were absconding and had to be arrested.

Sources disclosed that the wide dimensions of the probe and investigations into various leads were yet to be concluded and might take some time. The investigators were also extremely careful in verifying and confirming the allegations of harassment against the kar sevaks leading to the incident at Godhra.

At least 56 kar sevaks had been burnt to death when several bogies of the Sabarmati Express were torched by a mob at the Godhra railway station in Gujarat.

Considering the highly emotive environment, the investigators were careful in accepting individual versions before further corroboration. The investigators were tight-lipped and not forthcoming as they feared that premature disclosures might jeopardise the various leads they were working on.

The broad contours of the ISI conspiracy would be laid bare by the government in due course after investigations were completed. Sources said it would be “quite sometime” before the findings of the investigating teams in the Godhra incident would be concluded.

A top official here pointed out that conspiracy cases were not easy to investigate and prove. The September 11 attacks in the USA were still under investigation, he pointed out.