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Godhra panel stokes new controversy |
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The Justice U.C. Banerjee Committee appointed by the Railway Ministry has de-bunked the previous National Democratic Alliance Government’s conspiracy theory behind the fire incident in the Ahmedabad-bound Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002. Fifty nine people had died in the fire which had provoked one of the worst anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat after independence. The Banerjee Committee in its interim report said the fire in the S-6 coach of the train was purely accidental, according to the documents and evidence available with it. With the elimination of the “petrol theory” the “miscreant activity theory” and the ruling out of any possibility of “electrical fire”, the fire in the S-6 coach can at this stage be ascribed as an accidental fire”, the Committee said. It noted that there was a pre-ponderence of evidence that the fire originated in the coach S-6 itself without any external input.
“Moreover, the possibility of an inflammable liquid having been used is completely ruled out as there was first a smell of burning, followed by dense smoke and flames thereafter. This sequence is not possible in case the fire is caused by an inflammable liquid thrown on the floor of the coach or an inflammable object thrown from outside the coach. The inflammable liquid theory also gets negated by the statements of some of the passengers who suffered injuries on the upper portions of the body and not the lower body and who crawled towards the door on elbows and could get out without much injury,” the Committee concluded.
The Banerjee Committee report has contradicted the claim by the then BJP-led coalition at the Centre and the BJP Government in Gujarat that the Godhra incident was caused by a fire ignited by miscreants for killing karsewaks or Hindu volunteers returning from Ayodhya. It triggered wide spread communal riots in Gujarat in February and March 2002 in which thousands of people lost their lives and large numbers were rendered homeless.
The Banerjee panel was appointed by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on September 4,. 2004, three months after the Congress led United Progressive Government came to power at the Centre. The initial term of the committee was of three months and after that, it has been granted extension for three more months.
While the Banerjee panel described the Godhra incident as an accident, the Special Investigation Team of the Railway Police said their investigations strongly indicate a conspiracy being responsible for the carnage. The Gujarat Police also continue to stick to their claim that Islamic fundamentalists were responsible for the tragedy.
The BJP has questioned the credibility of the interim report of the Banerjee panel. Former Law Minister and BJP general secretary, Arun Jaitely, asked, “Did the Banerjee Committee consider the evidence that 140 litres of petrol had been purchased from a nearby petrol pump at Godhra on the night of February 26, 2002 and kept at the Aman guest House? Did it consider the evidence that two meetings took place the same night at the same guest house where the “conspiracy” to set alight the S-6 coach was hatched?” Asked about the veracity of the evidence, Jaitely said “this was the evidence presented by the police in court” and that he “was not getting into the merit of the evidence”. Contrary to the findings of the report, Jaitely maintained that some men, who had got into the train through the S-7 coach, threw an inflammable liquid into the S-6 coach from near the toilets just outside.
Defending the former Railway Miniser and Janata Dal (United) leader, Nitish Kumar, for not visiting the accident site, Jaitely said, “he could not have contributed anything by visiting the site since it was a law and order problem”. He came down heavily on Justice Banerjee (retd) for not talking to the head of the Special Investigation Team or getting the reports of the Gujarat Forensic Laboratory before making public his report. Jaitely said that since Nitish Kumar was the political rival of Railway Minister and RJD president Lalu Prasad, it seemed that Kumar’s name had been dragged into the report. Jaitely wondered what relevance did the absence of Nitish Kumar have that the Banerjee Committee report felt impelled to mention it. It was “plain politics”. The presence of a mob just outside the Godhra railway station demolished the “accident theory” of the Banerjee Committee, he said.
On the other hand, the CPI(M) has said that the Banerjee panel report has punched holes in the theory that inflammable liquid was thrown at passengers from outside the burnt coach of the Sabarmati Express. The party said the report nailed the lie of the Narender Modi Administration in Gujarat and the RSS/BJP outfits. The report had negated the theory, extensively propagated by the Narendra Modi administration and the Sangh Parivar that inflammable liquid had been thrown into the S-6 coach from outside. This was then used to unleash the most barbaric state-sponsored communal genocide in Gujarat with the express purpose of sharpening communal polarization to make electoral gains. “Such sinister cynical recourse to vitiate communal harmony for political and electoral benefits by the RSS/BJP is further exposed”, the party’s Polit Bureau said in a statement.
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