Gandhinagar, September 25
The Sabarmati Express coach burning was a “pre-planned conspiracy”, the Nanavati Commission has said, giving clean chit to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the state police in the subsequent post-Godhra riots that claimed over 1,000 lives.
The first part of the report was tabled in the state assembly today and it evoked instant criticism from political parties and rights activists opposed to the BJP. They contended that the commission was set up to “mislead” the people.
The report, which went into the coach burning in February 2002 in which 58 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya were killed, “was a pre-planned conspiracy” that was hatched at the Aman Guest House in Godhra.
The train carnage was cited as the reason by Hindu outfits to justify the post-Godhra pogrom.
This finding of the two-member commission goes contrary to a probe headed by another former Supreme Court judge U.C. Banerjee set up by the Lalu Prasad-headed railway ministry that the coach burning was purely an accident. Retired justice Akshay Mehta was the other member of the Nanavati Commission.
“There is absolutely no evidence to show that either the Chief Minister or any of the ministers in his council or police officers had played any role in the Godhra incident,” said the report of Justice G.T. Nanavati, a former Supreme Court judge, that went into the train burning incident.
The conclusion that the train burning was a “pre-planned conspiracy” was based on various grounds, including the statements of the passengers of the train that stone-pelting continued for 10-20 minutes to prevent the passengers from coming out of the coach.
Around 140 litres of petrol was purchased by Razzak Kurkur and Salim Panwala to execute the conspiracy, the commission said, adding that according to eyewitnesses Shaukat Lalu and Mohammad Latika had possibly opened the sliding door connecting the S6 and S7 coaches and entered S6 through that door.
One Hassan Lalu had thrown a burning rag, which had led to the fire in the S6 coach, it said. On the conspiracy, the report said it was hatched at the Aman Guest House on the directions of Maulvi Umarji and executed by Razzak Kurkur, Salim Panwala, Shaukat Lalu, Imran Sheri, Rafique Batuk and Shiraj Bala.
“The conspiracy hatched by these persons further appears to be a part of a larger conspiracy to create terror and destabilise the administration,” the report said.
Giving clean chit to Modi in the post-Godhra events, the
Nanavati Commission said there was no evidence to show there was lapse in the role of the Chief Minister or his ministers in providing protection, relief and rehabilitation to the victims of communal riots or in the matter of not complying with the recommendations and directions by the National Human Rights Commission. Reacting to the report, Justice Banerjee said it was an accidental fire and there was no question of anyone pouring petrol or indulging in a conspiracy in this regard.
“I have no doubt about it,” he said, adding it could not but be an accidental fire.
— PTI
