AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI, 4 July — Victims of sectarian violence in Gujarat are demanding a fresh probe into the train torching that triggered the worst communal bloodletting India has witnessed in a decade.
A forensic report has indicated that the Feb. 27 train torching at Godhra, a town 150 km from here, could have been sparked from inside the coaches that were burned. Fifty-eight passengers, mostly activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), had been killed in the incident.
An allegedly Muslim-led mob has been blamed for the attack on the Sabarmati Express just outside the Godhra station. The incident led to the largely anti-Muslim violence across Gujarat that left over 1,000 people dead.
"The report nails the truth. An entire community was blamed and persecuted for a crime that its members never committed," Islamic Relief Committee Gujarat Chairman Muhammad Safi Madani said. "We have been saying — rather crying hoarse — that a train coach cannot be set afire like this from outside," he added. "The forensic report confirms our contention that the Godhra carnage was a preplanned conspiracy to malign and persecute Muslims of Gujarat. It is a scientific report and not a piece of imagination. It is now the government’s duty to institute a proper inquiry, find the real culprits and book them," Madani said.
The report forms part of the charges filed in court against the accused in the Godhra case. It was finalized after a simulated exercise at the spot.
The report apparently rebuffs the theory propounded by Hindu groups that the two wagons were set ablaze by an armed mob of about 2,000 Muslims after they attacked the train.
Forensic experts threw water at a burned train wagon from several places and angles to ascertain how much inflammable liquid could enter it. After the experiments, they concluded that about 60 liters of inflammable material was poured inside the burned train car before it was set on fire.
However, VHP leader Dilip Trivedi said: "I have nothing to say on the forensic report as I have not read it. Even if it says that the coach was set ablaze from inside, the survivors have said that some miscreants had boarded the train earlier, entered the compartment and locked it from inside."
Abdullah Godhrawalla, a relief camp organizer at Godhra, said the preliminary report of the railway police too had corroborated the contention that the fire could have been set off from inside the train.
"The train could have been attacked by some misguided locals, but they certainly did not set the coaches afire. It was the handiwork of some people traveling in the train," Godhrawalla said.
"Hundreds of lives have been lost. Both Hindus and Muslims have died... The dead cannot come back. But the government must catch the real culprits and punish them. That alone will remove the stigma that our community has had to bear all these months," added Godhrawalla.
Madani said that several people have visited a burned Sabarmati Express car now at Godhra railway station and most expressed their doubts on the charges that the mob poured petrol and kerosene on the coaches before setting them on fire.
According to the forensic report, the windows were seven feet from the ground and most of the liquid thrown at the car during the simulated experiment fell outside.
Forensic experts also threw liquid at the compartment standing on a three-foot-high mound about 14 feet away from the car. Only 10 to 15 percent of the water entered the car.
As a major portion of the liquid fell on the tracks and around it, the fire should have damaged the outer surface of the car too, the report said.
Meanwhile, authorities in the state have canceled a major rally by the ruling party scheduled for this week amid fears it would re-ignite religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims, officials said yesterday.
The proposed "Gujarat Gaurav Rathyatra" was halted at the insistence of Premier Atal Behari Vajpayee, officials said. Hasmukh Patel, the spokesman here for Vajpayee’s Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which also rules the state, said the leadership canceled the rally after objections by the opposition parties and the National Human Rights Commission.
"The chariot rally, which was to be led by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, was planned by the BJP to highlight its performance in the state and expose attempts by pseudo-secularists to destabilize and tarnish the image of Gujarat," Patel said.
