The following is a comprehensive account of the Godhra train tragedy
as pieced together from official records.
The Hindu
January 23, 2005
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/2005012303901400.htm
The Truth about Godhra
By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Truth about Godhra - I
---
Three years after 59 train passengers, most of them VHP members and
sympathisers or their family members, perished in a fire on board coach
S-6 of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, a coherent picture is finally
emerging of what actually happened th at fateful morning.
Siddharth Varadarajan pieces together the puzzle.
---
WE HAVE before us now four bodies of evidence regarding the cause of
the February 27, 2002, fire - the police charge sheet (based on the
police investigation), the Justice U.C. Banerjee Committee's interim
report, the deposition of passengers and police and rail officials
before the Nanavati Commission and the technical report prepared by an
independent panel of engineering experts on behalf of the Hazards
Centre.
Unfortunately, none other than the Hazards Centre report can be
considered a complete body of evidence. The police charge sheet is
riddled with contradictions and relies too heavily on retracted
confessions and statements by witnesses of dubious credibility. The
Banerjee interim report bears all the hallmarks of a rush job, while
the Nanavati panel's work shows no signs of concluding despite the
passage of nearly three years.
Nevertheless, the burden of evidence gathered so far definitely does
not seem to support the pre-planned conspiracy theory of the police.
Mr. Justice Banerjee and the Hazards Centre experts aver that the fire
was most likely caused by an accident, though there is no doubting the
fact that coach S-6 was stoned by an angry mob.
That there was an accidental fire at the same time an angry mob was
throwing stones from outside might seem like something of a
coincidence. Perhaps it was the panic induced by the stoning which made
an accident more likely - a half-smoked cigarette thrown down
carelessly, a stove used for making tea not turned off properly.
On the other hand, if the Hazards Centre theory - of a smouldering
object under a berth eventually burning the latex seat, thereby
generating thick black smoke and then bursting into flames - is
correct, then the process of combustion might actually have started
15-20 minutes prior to the first time smoke was detected. This would be
well before the stoning started.
The platform
By now all narratives agree that a fracas broke out on the platform
between aggressive karsevaks and Muslim vendors. A Muslim girl was
molested by them. Stones were thrown on the coach and the karsevaks
also gathered stones to throw back. Worried that the situation might
deteriorate, the station master sent the train off suddenly at 7.48
a.m.
The first stop
No sooner had the engine crossed the platform than chain-pulling
stopped the train. Satyanarayan Varma, the train guard, told the
Nanavati Commission that the chain had been pulled because some
passengers had been left behind.
The first charge sheet says the karsevaks pulled the chain but
subsequent charge sheets claim one of the conspirators forced a Muslim
vendor to board the train and pull the chain.
In fact, rail records submitted to the Banerjee Committee show that the
chain had been pulled in four coaches (83101, 5343, 91238 and 88238).
These were rectified but it is possible there was a fifth coach too
which was not rectified. The record in the chargebook of the Assistant
Station Master (ASM) shows that there was another coach requiring
rectification.
Once the four coaches were set right, the train started moving again.
The time now was 7.55 a.m. according to the ASM and 8 a.m. according to
the guard. Passengers have testified that even as the train was
standing and then began to move, the stone-pelting which began on the
platform continued.
The second stop
Soon after the engine crossed Cabin `A' about a kilometre to the west
of the station, the train came to a halt again. There is no written
record of a chain pull or rectification or of an altered clappet valve
or dangling hosepipe as per the police claim that one Anvar Kalandar
stopped the train because the conspirators told him a Muslim girl had
been kidnapped by the karsevaks. It is possible that the unrectified
fifth coach dragged the train to a halt. Either way, there is no record
of physical evidence to suggest someone from outside the train got it
to stop. The only evidence with the police is Kalander's statement as a
witness that he was responsible.
Time the key
Given the speed of the train after the first stop (10-12 km/h) and the
distance of Cabin `A', the train would have come to a stop the second
time around 7.55-8.05 a.m.
Assuming the police case is correct, the conspirators were already in
position and began cutting the vestibule connecting S-6 and S-7.
Presumably, the process of cutting the vestibule, clambering aboard the
train with jerry cans, opening the door to allow three more
conspirators to get on board, emptying all the petrol and then setting
the coach on fire would take more than a couple of minutes.
Even allowing for the implied claim that the karsevaks on board S-6 did
not attempt to stop the conspirators from performing these tasks as
rapidly as possible, it is difficult to square this scenario with the
fact that in the railway records the fire/smoke is reported at 7.55
a.m.
The fire
In fact, the railway records state that the second stoppage and
sighting of smoke were simultaneous. The Wardhi Book entry of the GRP,
for example, records a complaint of fire at 7.55 a.m. received from the
ASM, who had in turn been intimated by the guard. The duty of the
officer recording the complaint ended at 8 a.m., when he handed over
charge. The GRP inspector, M.J. Zala, noted that the information about
the fire was received by him at 8.05 a.m.
Finally, the Special Duty Diary of the Vadodara control room shows
notification of the fire by 8.05 a.m. The Godhra fire station, for some
reason, records receiving the information only at 8.20 a.m.
Even assuming a five-minute gap between the second stoppage and the
fire, the police case is quite improbable.
The charge sheet says the main conspirators ran from the platform after
the stoning began all the way to a lane near the Aman Guest House where
the petrol was stored, loaded it on to an autorickshaw, drove to a
drain some 50 steps from the track, unloaded the cans, ran up to the
track and then cut the vestibule. Even assuming they began this process
at 7.43 a.m., as soon as the Sabarmati Express arrived at the Godhra
station, and set the train on fire by 8 a.m., was 17 minutes enough
time?
According to a `panchnama of rehearsal' dated 18.9.2002, it took the
police four minutes to move by auto from the Guest House to the drain.
In the remaining 13 minutes, the conspirators would have to have run
from the platform to the Guest House, loaded and unloaded the petrol,
covered the 50 steps by foot, cut the vestibule and gone on board S-6.
Even this improbable scenario becomes possible only because of the 8-10
minutes additional delay caused by the first stoppage. If the guard's
testimony is correct, the first stoppage was because karsevaks on board
pulled the chain. How could the conspirators, assuming they ran from
the platform at exactly 7.43 a.m., have known the karsevaks would pull
the chain?
No waiting mob
Finally, the testimony before the Nanavati commission of Rajendraprasad
Meena, ASM on duty at Cabin `A' at the time, makes it clear there was
no mob standing between the cabin and the train when it came to a halt
the second time. There was, however, a crowd running alongside the
train after it moved from the platform. When he got down from the
cabin, "some people from the crowd had come near the cabin... the mob
did not arrive together but 10-15 persons were coming and gathering...
There were women and children also." Mr. Meena was not witness to
anybody trying to cut the vestibule. "I did not see personally as to
who set the fire and how."
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/2005012303891400.htm
Part II: Arun Jaitley's questions...and some answers
In response to the Justice Banerjee Committee's conclusion that the
Godhra fire was most probably an accident, BJP spokesperson Arun
Jaitley posed a number of technical questions that he said contradicted
the "accident theory."
Mr. Jaitley's questions - and those raised by the Gujarat police -
all stem from the police charge sheet in the case and have been
answered, in whole or in part, by Justice Banerjee's report, the
testimony of passengers of coach S-6 and railway officials before the
Banerjee and Nanavati panels, and even more comprehensively by the
report of the independent panel of engineers assembled by the Hazards
Centre, New Delhi.
1. Did you consider the evidence that the conspirators entered S-7 and
cut open the vestibule between S-6 and S-7?
* Mr. Justice Banerjee's report makes it clear that since the Railways
allowed S-7 to proceed onwards to Ahmedabad and subsequently disposed
the burnt connecting vestibule as scrap, there is no forensic evidence
of the vestibule having been cut. In any event, the Railways' formal
note on the condition of coaches after the incident says only that the
vestibule was burnt. In other words, the sole written appraisal of the
vestibule based on a physical inspection by a qualified rail official
does not mention anything about it being cut.
* M.N. Joshi, a forensic expert with the Gujarat State Forensic Science
Laboratory (FSL) told the Nanavati Commission on January 18, 2005, that
the door connecting the vestibule between S-6 and S-7 was of the
sliding type and could not be kicked open, a claim the police
chargesheet makes.
* Dunu Roy and Prof. Dinesh Mohan of the Hazards Centre told The Hindu:
"On both sides of S-6 the vestibule was composed of steel walls ending
in neoprene rubber buffers. Those neoprene buffers are very tough and
impossible to cut or force one's way through".
2. Did you consider the evidence that the entire quantity of 140 litres
of petrol was poured inside S-6? The FSL report has confirmed that the
coach was burnt by inflammable liquid being thrown on the floor of S-6.
Justice Banerjee considered the FSL claim and rejected it because of
its improbability.
* The police chargesheet says that no less than six miscreants entered
S-6. First, Mehmood Hasan and Jabir Binyamin Behra cut the vestibule
and entered, followed by Shaukat Ahmed Charkha, who then opened the
door facing the Signal Falia side to let in Rafiq Husain Bhatuk, Irfan
Kalandar and Imran Bhatuk. The six men, each holding 20-litre carboys
filled with petrol, poured the contents on the floor of the coach. A
few minutes earlier, Abdul Razzak Kurkur had poured in 20 litres of
petrol through the toilet window. The six men then detrained and set
the coach on fire by throwing burning rags in.
* With six men allegedly entering and pouring petrol into S-6, notes Mr
Justice Banerjee, "it is not only improbable but absurd... that
inflammable material would be thrown out in an overcrowded coach from
the entry point of the coach to deep inside and not one whisper would
be raised by anyone of the persons within the bogie."
* One passenger, R.R. Rajpoot, who travelled on seat 62 near the
entrance the six miscreants allegedly came through, was asked by Mr
Justice Banerjee, "Did you see anybody setting the coach on fire or
throwing any substance?". He replied: "No, I did not".
* There were, by all accounts, as many as 140 passengers on board, at
least 80 of who survived. But none has testified seeing the miscreants
entering and throwing petrol.
* Asked by The Hindu for their opinion on the theory of petrol being
poured on the floor, the Hazards Centre engineers said: "The floor is
an impregnated plywood base with a vinyl cover - both of which are
`fire-resistant', meaning thereby that if the source of flame is
removed they will self-extinguish. Hence, something else has to keep it
burning. The FSL may think that what did that was 60 litres of petrol,
but the very nature of petrol is that it is so flammable that it will
rapidly burn away without extensively damaging the floor. And in this
case, the floor has been burnt away over three cubicles, as is evident
in the photographic evidence. The only plausible explanation for that
is that burning foam (from the seats) and plywood fell on the floor and
induced it to burn".
* Both Justice Banerjee and the Hazards Centre note that if the
miscreants had thrown petrol outside the bathrooms, as the police
claims, there would have been a large spread out of flames first, and
not smoke. But none of the passengers noticed large flames. Only smoke
was noticed. In some cases, passengers have testified that it was only
after they escaped from the smoke and came off the train that they saw
flames leaping. Raju Bhargava, police superintendent of Godhra, who
told the Nanavati commission he arrived at the scene "at about 8:30
a.m." testified: "I had not seen any raising of flames in the area of
that coach which I could see from the door. I had seen only smoke in
that area... I had not noticed any flames on the floor of the area
between the two doors." Mr Bhargava, incidentally, was at the scene
within 10 minutes of the time the police claims the coach was set on
fire. Of course, the Godhra station railway records note that the first
intimation of fire was between 7.55 a.m. and 8 a.m.
* Finally, both the Banerjee report and the Hazards Centre experts
point out that none of the passengers who were medically examined had
burn marks on the lower body,which would have been inevitable if petrol
was burning from below. Had there been a large fire emanating from the
floor near the bathroom, passengers in the 9th compartment (seats
64-72) would have been burned on their legs, and many people's
trousers, pajamas, sarees would have caught fire. But there is no such
evidence even from those who escaped from this compartment.
3. The police say an accidental fire is impossible since the materials
used in the bogie were fire retardant and self-extinguishing.
When asked this question by The Hindu, the Hazards Centre experts said
there was no contradiction.
* The fire-retardant materials are the vinyl-coated fabric (rexine) of
the seats, the ready mixed paints, the impregnated plywood floor base,
the vinyl cover on the floor, the asbestos ceiling, the synthetic wool
insulation, and the laminated plastic panels. But the latex foam and
the plywood base of the berths is another matter altogether. They are
both inflammable, the latter highly so, and neither have specifications
for fire-resistance.
* In any event, the presence of a smouldering object can make even
fire-retardant materials catch fire. Says the Hazards Centre: "The
floors, formica walls and rexine seat covers are the materials treated
with fire retardants. All these materials are sheets. The fire
retardant chemicals are added to the parent material. So if you try to
set the sheet on fire from one edge, the fire won't proceed along its
length easily. Similarly, if you pour some inflammable fluid on top of
this material, the material itself won't flare up until high
temperatures are generated. However, if some other material smoulders
and then burns, produces hot gases, and temperatures are raised enough,
there will be a flashover and the whole surface of the fire retardant
material gets heated at the same time, and not just a thin edge. In
such a situation the whole top surface (not just a thin edge) of the
linoleum, rexine or formica would melt and crumble and even burn at the
same time".
* The fact that this happens, says the Hazard Centre, is clearly
demonstrated by the accidental fire damage sustained by coaches parked
at the railway workshop at Jagadhri in Delhi. "That a carriage can be
burnt to cinders within 20 minutes or so without large amounts of fluid
being thrown is proved by the 5 carriages parked at Jagadhri and the
railways themselves have this evidence". (See photographs)
Part III: The police chargesheet... and some questions
The police chargesheet has been revised many times to add new faces and
elements to the crime. Apart from one major revision - when the
police abandoned the charge that the train was burned by throwing
petrol from the outside - the basic story of the core conspirators
boarding S-6 and setting it on fire from within has remained more or
less constant.
Essentially, the police says the conspiracy was hatched by a core group
at the Aman Guest House at Godhra on the night of February 26, 2002.
The conspirators learn that night that karsevaks will be passing
through Godhra on board the Sabarmati Express on the 27th and purchase
140 litres of petrol from a nearby petrol pump. The decision to burn
S-6 alone among all the coaches was allegedly taken by Mauala Umerji
and communicated to the conspirators. The plan was to engineer a
confrontation with karsevaks at the platform itself, and then, once the
train started, to pull the chain so that the train would stop near
Cabin 'A', where a 1,000-strong mob would lie in wait to ensure
none of the passengers escaped S-6 after it had been set on fire.
As matters stand, apart from contradicting what we know about the
timing and spread of the fire and the testimony of passengers, the
conspiracy theory raises a number of questions.
* How did the conspirators know the train was coming with karsevaks on
board when neither the railway authorities nor the SP of the Godhra
police had any prior knowledge.
* Why was S-6 selected for attack when the entire train was full of
karsevaks?
* How did the conspirators know that the karsevaks would pick a fight
with Muslim tea vendors on the platform?
* The chargesheet, which describes this fight, also says the karsevaks
molested a Muslim girl on the platform, Sophiya Haque, and that this
incident seems to have inflamed passions. How did the conspirators know
in advance that the kar sevaks would molest a girl?
* Assuming they took advantage of the Sophiya incident to spread the
rumour that she had been taken on board the train, how could the
conspirators ensure, in advance, the presence of a chivalrous man named
Anvar Kalander on the platform with both knowledge and inclination to
adjust the clappet valve outside the train and stop coach S-6 exactly
at Cabin 'A'. Despite effecting such a key role, the police says
Kalandar was just a bystander and not part of the conspiracy.
* If Abdul Razzak Kurkur threw petrol into the bathroom, as the
chargesheet says, much of it would have fallen on the tracks via the
commode. When the fire was lit, it should also have spread below the
wagon on the tracks - something the forensic laboratory says it found
no evidence for.
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/2005012303911400.htm
Part IV: Passengers saw heavy smoke, no fire on floor, no intruder
None of the passengers saw miscreants entering or pouring petrol
themselves. Moreover, none recalled other passengers - who might have
seen such a thing - mentioning this as the cause of the fire.
Hari Prasad Joshi: When the train came to a halt the second time (near
Cabin `A'), there was heavy stone pelting from the platform side... The
train was overcrowded and people said the train was on fire. At that
point, people started getting off but the smoke was very thick and
Joshi and his wife had difficulty breathing.
Writes Mr. Justice Banerjee: "Joshi fell down on the floor and located
some place obviously on the floor where he could breathe. He then
crawled towards the door, which was open, and then came out after
crawling the entire distance in the coach itself." His wife, however,
choked to death and fell down. "I was standing near the window for the
safety of my wife and I could hear the cries for help, but within two
to three minutes, all became quiet and it is thereafter only that
flames were seen and not at any earlier point of time."
Mr. Justice Banerjee records that Joshi got down from the rear of the
coach on the yard side, near seat 72, because most passengers had fled
towards the front of the coach away from the source of the smoke. If
the fire was caused by petrol thrown on the floor near seat 72, Joshi
would not have been able to exit through there, let alone crawl on the
floor. Moreover, the flames should have been visible from outside
almost immediately since seat 72 was a window seat on the yard side.
D.N. Dwivedi: He was sitting on the floor and noticed very heavy and
thick smoke coming from the top left inside of the coach.
Jamuna Prasad: He testified that there was a 10-minute gap between the
detection of smoke and detection of flames. "We were not able to
imagine that any fire could break out even in a steel or in an iron
coach. For this reason, it took quite some time to make up our mind to
escape."
Dwarkabhai: His deposition before the Nanavati Commission states, "I
came out through the window of the third cubicle... Till I came out of
the coach, I had not seen any flames. As long as I was inside the
coach, I had not noticed any fluid having been poured inside the coach.
I had not seen any person sprinkling any fluid or putting fire on the
coach."
Jayantibhai: "Due to smoke, I had moved towards engine side... I do not
know how the smoke had taken place... The people on back side of the
coach were talking that the coach was burning from inside and therefore
all should run... The smell of the smoke was like that of burning
rubber. It was like burning of luggage." (Testimony before Nanavati
Commission).
Ramfersinh: He told the Nanvati Commission he saw burning rags coming
in from the platform side through broken windows but "nothing on the
floor had burnt due to throwing of burning rags."
Bhupatbhai: He told the Nanavati Commission, "I had not seen anybody
from the mob entering the coach. I had seen one or two burning rags
being thrown on the coach but I had not seen whether those rags entered
the coach or not."
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/2005012303921400.htm
Part V: The voice of a victim
Girish Rawal, an 82-year-old man who lost his wife, Sudhabehn, in S-6,
died before he could learn the truth about the train tragedy. But he
knew even then that his family had been made "sacrificial goats by the
VHP in its political game."
His son, Ashwin, a local Bajrang Dal leader, was killed in a stabbing
incident in the post-Godhra riots. This is an extract and summary of an
affidavit filed by the late Girish Bhai before the Supreme Court in
October 2003.
Sudhabehn was a senior social worker with the Agha Khan Foundation's
Khoja Council. Like others from Janatanagar, Ahmedabad, she
"participated in the yatra spontaneously, thinking it was a religious
event.
In her life and mine we did not share the communal sentiments that are
part and parcel of the VHP/BJP's politics." However, "as his [Ashwin's]
father, I say with regret that just like any terrorist" he had been
"turned in heart and mind by the vicious VHP propaganda."
Girish Bhai's affidavit squarely blames the VHP, the BJP, the Gujarat
Government and the Railways for both the Godhra tragedy and the
`barbaric violence' that followed.
"Since this tragedy our family members have been used by the VHP and
the BJP to amass crores of rupees, here and abroad, and also win the
last elections. Worse still, they were used for justifying the
[subsequent] murders ... On many occasions the VHP and BJP have held
functions with big names from the NRI world and collected large sums of
money while they made us sit on the dais as scapegoats. Where has this
money gone and what has it been used for?"
The victims themselves "have been denied fair and proper compensation."
"Even out of the Rs. 1 lakh promised by the Gujarat Government, Pravin
Togadia told us to forget Rs. 50,000, promising that the VHP would make
up the amount. All sorts of other promises were also made but none have
been kept."
As for justice: "The investigation into the causes and fallout of the
Godhra tragedy too are being suppressed by the current BJP
establishment... I was scheduled to depose before the Shah-Nanavati
commission on September 18, 2003. A few days before, some VHP people
came led by Jaykanth Dave of the BJP to tutor us how to speak. Our
society of 35 tenements is situated in a remote place and they tried to
use this pressure. I was so upset at the fact that we were being told
what to say that I did not go. Some others out of fear went ... On
October 2, 2003,at 10 pm, 6 persons belonging to the VHP led by
Bachubhai Patel came to my house with a singular aim of making us
change our minds from pursuing this case ... I said I was not
interested in money but in justice ... Jaideep bhai [VHP leader] also
tried to influence me but I am very clear that we wish to both fight
for justice and dignity for ourselves and use the tragedy that has
befallen us to warn innocent victims not to fall prey to yatra
politics.
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/22/stories/2005012206010100.htm
Part VI: Godhra report details negligence by railways
NEW DELHI, JAN. 21. Apart from concluding that the fire which engulfed
the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002 was probably
caused by an accident, the Justice U.C. Banerjee Committee has indicted
the Railways on at least eight counts of negligence, amounting, in many
cases, to serious violation of procedures mandated either by statute or
plain common sense.
To the millions of Indians who travel by train every day, the picture
that emerges is a sobering - and even disturbing - one.
Hinting that the officials involved were either incompetent or
effecting a cover-up, Mr. Justice Banerjee writes that if the way the
Railways acted in the run-up to and aftermath of the Godhra fire can be
taken to be "the normal functioning of the Railways... then only God
can help the passengers."
Describing the violations in considerable detail, the committee's
165-page Interim Report - a copy of which is with The Hindu -
attacks senior railway officials for giving credence to rumours about
the incident that were patently false or absurd. At any rate, the
Railways was party to both the destruction of forensic evidence and a
sloppy system of record-keeping, which combined to help obscure the
truth about the circumstances under which 59 passengers were burnt to
death on board coach S-6 of the train.
The report - whose strong logic is sadly marred by a meandering
narrative and imprecise syntax - begins by attacking the Railways for
not instituting its own inquiry into the incident, as mandated by law.
The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), Mumbai, said this was because
the Gujarat Government had set up a commission of inquiry. Pointing out
that the Shah Commission was notified only on March 6, 2002, i.e.,
eight days after the incident, Mr. Justice Banerjee says "the
explanation put forth by the CRS is unacceptable... The notification
for an enquiry under the Railways Act should and ought to have been
issued by him within 48 hours from the time of intimation" of the
incident.
Mr. Justice Banerjee takes exception to the use of the stock phrase
"set on fire" by senior officials in referring to the burning of S-6.
"Before making any comment as to how the fire originated, one is
required to examine the necessary details and that is precisely why the
Railways Act provided for a Railway inquiry." He suggests that the
railway authorities' eagerness to come to a "pre-determined conclusion
as to the cause of the fire" was reminiscent of the "Modern Day Neros"
in the Gujarat Government - indicted by the Supreme Court in its Best
Bakery judgment for "looking elsewhere while innocent people died
and... . deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or
protected."
[continued in Part Seven ]
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