Praful Bidwai Column
January 31, 2005
Accidental Fire, Planned Carnage
The truth about Godhra
By Praful Bidwai
There was always something morally and politically repugnant about Mr Narendra Milosevic Modi’s claim that the killing of 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat after the Godhra train fire was a “natural reaction”—much like Newton’s Third Law of Motion. This was a diabolical defence of the indefensible—a systematic, planned, well-orchestrated carnage, during which mobs of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters indulged in arson, loot, rape and killing even as the police watched, or at times, participated. The justification? Fiftynine karsevaks were roasted alive at Godhra in an Islamic-extremist “conspiracy”.
Reason tells us that no amount of devilish conspiracy at Godhra can possibly justify the planned pogrom of innocents all over Gujarat. Worse, the Gujarat government was deeply involved in its planning and execution—a fact amply established by media reports, the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal chaired by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, the International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat, etc. Gujarat witnessed total subversion of the Constitution and destruction of the idea of democratic citizenship. It descended into barbarism.
That’s why millions were shocked when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee justified the pogrom in Goa on April 12. He chided Muslims for their “separateness” and asked: “But who lit the fire?” The BJP cynically exploited Godhra in its state election campaign. “Action,” the image of the burning coach, eclipsed the far ghastlier “reaction”.
Several accounts have emerged of what happened in Godhra—including depositions by S-6 survivors before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, police versions of the “conspiracy”, for which they have named 131 accused, and many independent reconstructions of events. Most of these suggest that the fire was accidental, not caused deliberately. Now, the Interim Report of the High-Powered Committee headed by former Supreme Court judge U.C. Banerjee doubly confirms this. Its principal findings are corroborated by an independent expert inquiry by four engineers under the aegis of the Delhi-based Hazards Centre.
The findings show there was no premeditated attempt to set Coach S-6 on fire; the fire began 20-30 minutes after the generation of highly toxic smoke, itself probably caused by the burning of latex foam on the seats; the ignition probably originated under a bench due to a half-burnt matchstick or cigarette, or a kerosene stove.
The 156-page Banerjee report and the Hazards Centre study blow a huge hole through the fanciful theories woven by the BJP and the Modi government. They tear up the last figleaf in the BJP’s defence and shows it’s incapable of shedding its hatred of Muslims. The BJP has tried to discredit Mr Banerjee’s report by politically linking him with Railway Minister Laloo Prasad, and claiming that its timing was determined by the elections in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana. But the same Mr Banerjee had refused Mr Prasad’s bail application in the fodder case in the Supreme Court! As for the timing, the Railway Board, a professional-run body, itself requested an Interim Report.
These issues are diversionary. It’s of central importance that the public knows the truth about Independent India’s worst state-sponsored communal pogrom. The Banerjee Report will naturally figure in campaigns in the election-bound states. It’s absurd to ban a reference to it. The Election Commission would exceed its jurisdiction if it did so. The two processes, of inquiry into communal crimes, and holding elections (which are, increasingly, staggered), must run in parallel. One should not be subordinated to the other.
While dismissing the “petrol theory” and the “miscreant activity story”, the Banerjee Committee notes that the Sabarmati Express was pelted with stones by mobs enraged by altercations with trishul-bearing militant karsevaks returning from Ayodhya. Under the circumstances, it’s extremely unlikely that an outsider could have got into the train, either through the door of Coach S-6 or by breaking into the vestibule joining it with S-7. There were 140 people aboard the coach with 72 berths, dominated by VHP karsevaks. Its doors had been locked from the inside.
The survivors’ depositions provide no evidence of intrusion, or of flames rising from a pool of petrol from the floor. The damage marks on Coach S-6 point to a fire at the upper level, not the floor. This pattern also holds with the victims, who typically sustained burn injuries above the waist, not below. This is incompatible with the theory of a floor-level conflagration beginning with an inflammable liquid. Preceding the fire was highly poisonous “thick, black smoke” emanating from the rear of Coach S-6, which smelt like “burning rubber”. The Banerjee report quotes the testimonies of 14 key survivors-eyewitnesses, including Hari Prasad Joshi (berths 42-43), D.N. Dwivedi (sitting on the floor), Jamuna Prasad (berth 25), L.P. Choresia (berth 72) and others to show that they didn’t see anyone lighting a fire.
Besides testimonies, there’s strong evidence from the Hazards Centre report that the fire occurred accidentally. This report is a systematic analysis of the pattern of damage to Coach S-6, the type of fire and its likely causation, depositions of 41 surviving passengers to the police, a critique of 27 post-mortem reports, and correlation of injuries to 56 passengers with the spread of the smoke and fire. The emphasis is on a scientific analysis of the physical processes of causation of the fire.
The report is authored by four engineers. Two of them are professors at IIT-Delhi—one with expertise in injuries, and the other in thermodynamics and fluidisation. The other two members are a Railway engineer with expertise in coaching, and the coordinator of Hazards Centre, who has a background in safety engineering. The experts methodically compared S-6 with six other damaged railway coaches, including one burnt in Delhi in 2003, with similar damage patterns.
The report reasons that had the fire started on the S-6 floor near the toilet, “inflammable plywood and foam in three tiers of seats would not be available for the fire to burn … If the fire was started by an inflammable fluid on the floor, the flames would have been noticed right away … precluding the possibility of a long-smouldering source”. How, then, did the fire start? In all probability, it started slowly, when combustible material placed below the lower berth, including clothing and plastic goods, caught fire. This ignited the plywood base of the seat and then the latex foam, and then spread to the rexine (vinyl) seat cover, the sun-mica partitions and linoleum flooring.
It is these synthetic materials that pose the greatest hazard. On combustion, they produce hydrogen cyanide, free isocyanates and carbon monoxide, along with dense smoke. Chlorine-containing plastics generate dioxin, the most poisonous substance known to science. In all probability, the gases proved far more lethal than the fire.
The probable location of the initial combustion was a berth between Cabins 8 & 9. The combustion process produced high-temperature smoke which spread along the ceiling and eventually resulted in a flash-over. People scrambled and ran to escape the dense and toxic fumes and radiative heat. Many were asphyxiated and died. Some escaped through the windows on the yard side and a few through the door next to Berth 72.
The Banerjee Report strongly indicts the Railways for being over one hour and 15 minutes too late in despatching a fire engine, and that with too little water. It holds them guilty of not ordering an inquiry as required under the safety rules, of not photographing critical evidence, and of running Coach S-7 and allowing the disposal of its burnt vestibule as scrap.
The two reports’ principal findings are further confirmed by a Survey of Indian study, which suggests that it’s fanciful to imagine that a crowd could have moved easily to Cabin A, near where which Coach S-6 was parked at the time. The topography was “inhospitable to a large assembly of people given the depth of (an intervening 27 metre-long) nallah and also the proliferation of closely packed thorny trees like Keekar. A person pelting stones would have to be standing either deep down the nallah which has about one metre of water, or beyond it, behind ‘A’ Cabin, which is 57 metres away …”
Mr Banerjee’s final report will hopefully factor in the Hazards Centre findings and produce yet more clinching evidence that the fire was accidental, and it was wrong to attribute it to a conspiracy. The Gujarat police have a disgraceful record on Godhra. They have arrested 104 persons on various charges of “conspiracy” and “terrorism”, mainly under POTA, but they have at least three versions of the crime, spread over 10 different chargesheets. This makes nonsense of the police case: the versions are mutually contradictory.
The conclusion is inescapable: no conspiracy occurred. There was no mob at Godhra waiting for the train which was running five hours late. The Modi government concocted theories to justify the ensuing pogrom. This terrible injustice must be redeemed—through several steps, including the release of POTA detainees and institution of a credible inquiry that will establish who was guilty for the butchery of 2,000 and rape of over 10,000 women. Without justice, there will be no redemption; no lessons will be learnt.—end—
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January 31, 2005
January 29, 2005
Godhra Train Fire: Banerjee Committee - Elusive Truth
The Economic and Political Weekly
January 29, 2005
Editorial
Banerjee Committee: Elusive Truth
The truth, it has been said, will emerge if sufficient efforts are expended in its search. Yet, despite the efforts and the time invested, the 'truth' about Godhra that emerges at every turn is one that has many versions, is contentious and remains as difficult to unravel as ever.
The events that followed Godhra when 59 passengers, mainly kar sevaks, burnt to death when a coach of the Sabarmati Express caught fire on February 27, 2002, saw some of the worst violence in post-independence India. The communal riots claimed more than 2,000 lives in Gujarat, most of them Muslims. Since then, any criticism of the Narendra Modi BJP-led government's inability to prevent the total breakdown of law and order has been deflected by invoking Godhra, as BJP leaders insisted it was the conspiracy hatched and enacted at Godhra that sparked off the 'shameful' riots. The Modi government's zeal in bringing the Godhra conspirators to book, even as riot cases in several other grievous instances floundered, saw more than a 100 people arrested under POTA, 76 of whom were subsequently charge-sheeted.
The Nanavati-Shah Commission set up by the Modi government to inquire into the 'setting on fire of some of the coaches of the Sabarmati Express train', is now into its third year of investigations, but it has never been able to free itself of charges of 'political association'. Neither has the U C Banerjee Committee, set up last September by Lalu Prasad Yadav, the railway minister in the UPA government, to probe the fire in coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express. In its interim report submitted recently, a fortnight before elections in three crucial states including Bihar begin, the Banerjee Committee believes the fire was 'accidental'. The report draws on the evidence of forensic experts and engineers to conclude that "at this stage... a preponderance of evidence (suggests) that the fire in coach S6 originated in the coach itself without any external input"; the report, in fact, indicates that the fire may have started due to cooking inside the train. It also records its disbelief that the trishul-armed kar sevaks, who formed 90 per cent of the coach's total occupants, allowed themselves to get burnt. The report also chastises then railway minister, Nitish Kumar, and the railways for not conducting the mandatory inquiry by the commissioner of rail safety.
The interim report does dispense with the 'conspiracy' theory (and there are several) but the Banerjee Committee leaves other issues unanswered. The agonising question as to how the fire started remains in search of an explanation. Moreover, neither police charge-sheets nor the present interim report have yet been able to establish any link between the 'huge' crowds that amassed outside cabin A at Godhra station and the actual incidence of fire. All that has emerged is a mass of theories, contradictory and conflicting but with little clinching evidence.
The final report of the Banerjee Committee is still awaited, the Nanavati Commission report is due in December and investigations by the Gujarat police remain ongoing, yet truth remains elusive. But Godhra remains an emotive issue; the BJP's fears that it will be used for political gains in Bihar are valid, while the Election Commission has 'reprimanded' Lalu Yadav for using it to his own advantage in Bihar, i e, consolidating the Muslim votes. Godhra needs closure, not just for its victims and survivors but to also ensure that the state and its institutions, which rather than ensuring security chose to indulge in the politics of cynical manipulation, are brought to book. There is also a case to be made for US style commission inquiries that are conducted in public. It is necessary that pettifogging over the report, its findings and its immediate utility, does not obfuscate the wider issue of the state's role in the riots that followed, of the many instances that reveal collusion between state authorities and rioters, and of the final need to ensure justice. The Banerjee Committee's interim report does expose the mishandling of the inquiry by the railways and it does suggest that there is enough evidence to question the allegation that coach S6 was set on fire by the residents of Godhra. But a clear resolution of Gujarat, vital for the Indian state to retain its 'secular' credentials, is something this interim report was not equipped to do, nor should the brouhaha that it has generated be mistaken for its having done so.
January 29, 2005
Editorial
Banerjee Committee: Elusive Truth
The truth, it has been said, will emerge if sufficient efforts are expended in its search. Yet, despite the efforts and the time invested, the 'truth' about Godhra that emerges at every turn is one that has many versions, is contentious and remains as difficult to unravel as ever.
The events that followed Godhra when 59 passengers, mainly kar sevaks, burnt to death when a coach of the Sabarmati Express caught fire on February 27, 2002, saw some of the worst violence in post-independence India. The communal riots claimed more than 2,000 lives in Gujarat, most of them Muslims. Since then, any criticism of the Narendra Modi BJP-led government's inability to prevent the total breakdown of law and order has been deflected by invoking Godhra, as BJP leaders insisted it was the conspiracy hatched and enacted at Godhra that sparked off the 'shameful' riots. The Modi government's zeal in bringing the Godhra conspirators to book, even as riot cases in several other grievous instances floundered, saw more than a 100 people arrested under POTA, 76 of whom were subsequently charge-sheeted.
The Nanavati-Shah Commission set up by the Modi government to inquire into the 'setting on fire of some of the coaches of the Sabarmati Express train', is now into its third year of investigations, but it has never been able to free itself of charges of 'political association'. Neither has the U C Banerjee Committee, set up last September by Lalu Prasad Yadav, the railway minister in the UPA government, to probe the fire in coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express. In its interim report submitted recently, a fortnight before elections in three crucial states including Bihar begin, the Banerjee Committee believes the fire was 'accidental'. The report draws on the evidence of forensic experts and engineers to conclude that "at this stage... a preponderance of evidence (suggests) that the fire in coach S6 originated in the coach itself without any external input"; the report, in fact, indicates that the fire may have started due to cooking inside the train. It also records its disbelief that the trishul-armed kar sevaks, who formed 90 per cent of the coach's total occupants, allowed themselves to get burnt. The report also chastises then railway minister, Nitish Kumar, and the railways for not conducting the mandatory inquiry by the commissioner of rail safety.
The interim report does dispense with the 'conspiracy' theory (and there are several) but the Banerjee Committee leaves other issues unanswered. The agonising question as to how the fire started remains in search of an explanation. Moreover, neither police charge-sheets nor the present interim report have yet been able to establish any link between the 'huge' crowds that amassed outside cabin A at Godhra station and the actual incidence of fire. All that has emerged is a mass of theories, contradictory and conflicting but with little clinching evidence.
The final report of the Banerjee Committee is still awaited, the Nanavati Commission report is due in December and investigations by the Gujarat police remain ongoing, yet truth remains elusive. But Godhra remains an emotive issue; the BJP's fears that it will be used for political gains in Bihar are valid, while the Election Commission has 'reprimanded' Lalu Yadav for using it to his own advantage in Bihar, i e, consolidating the Muslim votes. Godhra needs closure, not just for its victims and survivors but to also ensure that the state and its institutions, which rather than ensuring security chose to indulge in the politics of cynical manipulation, are brought to book. There is also a case to be made for US style commission inquiries that are conducted in public. It is necessary that pettifogging over the report, its findings and its immediate utility, does not obfuscate the wider issue of the state's role in the riots that followed, of the many instances that reveal collusion between state authorities and rioters, and of the final need to ensure justice. The Banerjee Committee's interim report does expose the mishandling of the inquiry by the railways and it does suggest that there is enough evidence to question the allegation that coach S6 was set on fire by the residents of Godhra. But a clear resolution of Gujarat, vital for the Indian state to retain its 'secular' credentials, is something this interim report was not equipped to do, nor should the brouhaha that it has generated be mistaken for its having done so.
January 24, 2005
The Truth about Godhra (Part VII) by Siddharth Varadarajan
Part VII: Evidence destroyed, records fudged
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/22/stories/2005012205451100.htm
Truth about Godhra-VII
Evidence destroyed, records fudged
By Siddharth Varadarajan
NEW DELHI, JAN. 21. Arguably the most serious - and suspicious - of
all post-incident Railways lapses pointed out by the Justice Banerjee
committee was the decision to let coach S-7, which also sustained
damage, proceed to Ahmedabad with the rest of the train. Curiously,
coach S-5, which sustained the same kind of damage to its windowpanes
as S-7, was detached along with the burnt remains of S-6.
Incidentally, the Railways note on the condition of the coaches after
the incident says clearly that although the connecting vestibule of S-5
was "completely burnt," the vestibule of S-7 was only "burnt." There is
no mention of the vestibule having been cut, as the police charge sheet
in the case stated subsequently - pursuant to its theory that
miscreants entered S-6 by cutting open the S-7 vestibule and set it on
fire by pouring petrol from inside.
Sold as scrap
Once S-7 arrived in Ahmedabad, however, it was marked "sick" and
withdrawn from service the same day. Repaired six days later, the burnt
vestibule was "disposed off in the scrap." Mr. Justice Banerjee writes:
"Had S-7 been made available along with S-5 and in the event of an
examination thereof, one could come to a definite conclusion (about
whether the vestibule had been slit) but the same cannot possibly be
had since the evidence stands destroyed."
Among the other post-incident procedures violated were the failure to
get track, carriage and wagon and vacuum power certifications done as
required. Rule 317 of the Accident Manual, which says arrangements must
be made for photographs to be taken of all essential aspects of an
untoward incident, was also not followed, thus robbing the Railways of
photographic evidence that would have been useful not just for
analysing the cause of the fire but also the dynamics of its spread.
"Invented claim"
The Godhra report uses scathing words to criticise senior rail
officials for "inventing" the claim that miscreants had locked the
doors of coach S-6 from outside. "Admittedly, the coaches can be locked
from outside with a master key, which is invariably with the Railways
administration," Mr. Justice Banerjee says. "Does the Divisional
Railway Manager, Baroda, (who wrote that the doors were locked) want to
suggest involvement of a high Railway official, otherwise there cannot
be any such locking of the door from the outside." The rail experts
advising me have said in no uncertain terms that the closure of four
doors from the outside just cannot happen, Mr. Justice Banerjee writes.
"Then why did the DRM write in his report in that fashion... is it
total non-application of mind or something other than that - the
answer will have to be found out."
Mr. Justice Banerjee also criticises the Railway authorities' actions
in the run-up to the Sabarmati Express's arrival at Godhra. The report
notes that the ticket examiner could not get access to S-6 and other
coaches because they were filled with kar sevaks and had sent a message
at Ujjain - en route to Godhra - for additional railway police to
be made available at Ratlam station, 90 minutes away. At Ratlam,
however, no arrangement was made, despite the obvious dangers involved
in such overcrowding.
Intelligence report
The Gujarat police and Railways also failed to act on an intelligence
report sent out 11 days prior to the incident by R.B. Sreekumar,
Additional Director-General of Police (Intelligence), that a large
group of kar sevaks ("They will carry `trishul' with them," Mr.
Sreekumar's message had noted) would be returning by the Sabarmati
Express from Ayodhya on February 2, 2002. Thus, no additional bandobast
was made.
"The entire approach seems to be very casual and unfortunately, the
high-ups in the Western Railway administration did not adhere to even
the basic statutory rules and observance of which (sic) is mandatory.
The Accident Manual, which contains so many do's and don'ts, has been
given a complete go by," Mr. Justice Banerjee notes.
Curiously, though a crucial aspect of the police case is that the train
was forced to stop near Cabin `A' just outside Godhra station by
someone from the mob of miscreants either by pulling the chain from
inside or altering the clappet valve or kicking aside the hose coupling
for the vacuum pipe from outside, the Railways has no record of either
a second chain-pulling or of a dangling hose-pipe being set right.
(Concluded)
© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/22/stories/2005012205451100.htm
Truth about Godhra-VII
Evidence destroyed, records fudged
By Siddharth Varadarajan
NEW DELHI, JAN. 21. Arguably the most serious - and suspicious - of
all post-incident Railways lapses pointed out by the Justice Banerjee
committee was the decision to let coach S-7, which also sustained
damage, proceed to Ahmedabad with the rest of the train. Curiously,
coach S-5, which sustained the same kind of damage to its windowpanes
as S-7, was detached along with the burnt remains of S-6.
Incidentally, the Railways note on the condition of the coaches after
the incident says clearly that although the connecting vestibule of S-5
was "completely burnt," the vestibule of S-7 was only "burnt." There is
no mention of the vestibule having been cut, as the police charge sheet
in the case stated subsequently - pursuant to its theory that
miscreants entered S-6 by cutting open the S-7 vestibule and set it on
fire by pouring petrol from inside.
Sold as scrap
Once S-7 arrived in Ahmedabad, however, it was marked "sick" and
withdrawn from service the same day. Repaired six days later, the burnt
vestibule was "disposed off in the scrap." Mr. Justice Banerjee writes:
"Had S-7 been made available along with S-5 and in the event of an
examination thereof, one could come to a definite conclusion (about
whether the vestibule had been slit) but the same cannot possibly be
had since the evidence stands destroyed."
Among the other post-incident procedures violated were the failure to
get track, carriage and wagon and vacuum power certifications done as
required. Rule 317 of the Accident Manual, which says arrangements must
be made for photographs to be taken of all essential aspects of an
untoward incident, was also not followed, thus robbing the Railways of
photographic evidence that would have been useful not just for
analysing the cause of the fire but also the dynamics of its spread.
"Invented claim"
The Godhra report uses scathing words to criticise senior rail
officials for "inventing" the claim that miscreants had locked the
doors of coach S-6 from outside. "Admittedly, the coaches can be locked
from outside with a master key, which is invariably with the Railways
administration," Mr. Justice Banerjee says. "Does the Divisional
Railway Manager, Baroda, (who wrote that the doors were locked) want to
suggest involvement of a high Railway official, otherwise there cannot
be any such locking of the door from the outside." The rail experts
advising me have said in no uncertain terms that the closure of four
doors from the outside just cannot happen, Mr. Justice Banerjee writes.
"Then why did the DRM write in his report in that fashion... is it
total non-application of mind or something other than that - the
answer will have to be found out."
Mr. Justice Banerjee also criticises the Railway authorities' actions
in the run-up to the Sabarmati Express's arrival at Godhra. The report
notes that the ticket examiner could not get access to S-6 and other
coaches because they were filled with kar sevaks and had sent a message
at Ujjain - en route to Godhra - for additional railway police to
be made available at Ratlam station, 90 minutes away. At Ratlam,
however, no arrangement was made, despite the obvious dangers involved
in such overcrowding.
Intelligence report
The Gujarat police and Railways also failed to act on an intelligence
report sent out 11 days prior to the incident by R.B. Sreekumar,
Additional Director-General of Police (Intelligence), that a large
group of kar sevaks ("They will carry `trishul' with them," Mr.
Sreekumar's message had noted) would be returning by the Sabarmati
Express from Ayodhya on February 2, 2002. Thus, no additional bandobast
was made.
"The entire approach seems to be very casual and unfortunately, the
high-ups in the Western Railway administration did not adhere to even
the basic statutory rules and observance of which (sic) is mandatory.
The Accident Manual, which contains so many do's and don'ts, has been
given a complete go by," Mr. Justice Banerjee notes.
Curiously, though a crucial aspect of the police case is that the train
was forced to stop near Cabin `A' just outside Godhra station by
someone from the mob of miscreants either by pulling the chain from
inside or altering the clappet valve or kicking aside the hose coupling
for the vacuum pipe from outside, the Railways has no record of either
a second chain-pulling or of a dangling hose-pipe being set right.
(Concluded)
© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu
The Truth about Godhra (Pts I-VI) by Siddharth Varadarajan
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 ]
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 ]
January 06, 2005
Beware of Funding Hate -Press Release by Awaaz South Asia
AWAAZ - SOUTH ASIA WATCH
PRESS RELEASE: Wednesday, January 05, 2005
ENQUIRIES TO: contact@awaazsaw.org
http://www.awaazsaw.org
HELP RECONSTRUCT LIVES & COMMUNITIES
BEWARE OF FUNDING HATE
The death toll from the deadly tsunami which has affected several Asian countries has now crossed 150,000; hundreds of thousands more people and communities have been devastated by the loss of families, friends, homes and property. Numerous dedicated volunteers and organizations have come together to organize relief and rehabilitation. Awaaz - South Asia Watch strongly supports these efforts and urges all generous individuals and organizations in the UK to continue to support these initiatives even after the media coverage inevitably decreases. The greatest need is for immediate relief followed by rehabilitation and the restoration of livelihoods - to provide people with the means to get back on their own feet.
To ensure that their well-intended donations do not fall into the wrong hands, Awaaz urges donors to channel their contributions through organizations with established secular, humanitarian and non-violent credentials. Unfortunately, there are a small handful of self-interested and chauvinist groups associated with religious fundamentalism in these regions that will make use of this disaster to expand their networks and cultivate religious and sectarian hatred. Some of these groups have powerful front organizations in the UK. Even if their appeals today sound well-meaning, the longer term consequences of the activities of religious fundamentalist groups are the same: fundamentalism creates strife between communities, polarizes societies, and foments hatred and large-scale violence.
BEWARE OF FUNDING SECTARIAN HATRED
We have been asked by numerous supporters in the UK about which charities they should donate money to. Supporters have expressed concerns that money they donate does not aid the expansion of extremist Hindutva organizations in India or extremist Islamist organizations in Indonesia, Malaysia or elsewhere. The following UK organizations have been or currently are under investigation by the Charity Commission.
Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS UK)
Sewa International (SI UK)
Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK (VHP UK)
Sewa International UK / Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh UK are currently under investigation by the Charity Commission in relation to the funds raised in the UK following the Gujarat Earthquake in 2001. Sewa International UK and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK are also leading members of the ëdisaster relief task forceà recently launched by the Hindu Forum UK. Sewa International UK, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh UK and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK are all associated with a violent, fascistic, anti-minority Indian organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS or its affiliates have been repeatedly implicated by numerous independent national and international human rights groups for involvement in violence and the promotion of hatred, including the anti-Muslim Gujarat pogroms in 2002 and the anti-Christian violence in 1998-2000. Following both the Orissa supercyclone in 1999 and the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, RSS front organizations expanded their activities considerably in these two
states. Awaaz believes that the tsunami disaster provides an important opportunity for the RSS to expand its activities in southern Indian states, including Tamil Nadu, areas where it has had relatively limited success. For further information, see http://www.awaazsaw.org and http://www.stopfundinghate.org.
HOW TO DONATE
We urge you to donate to neutral, humanitarian, non-sectarian organizations.
DONATING FROM THE UK
DISASTERS EMERGENCY COMMITTEE (DEC)
Donate online at: http://www.dec.org.uk/
or call: 0870 60 60 900
OXFAM
Donate online at: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/
or call: 0870 333 2700
BRITISH RED CROSS
Donate online at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/
or call: 08705 125 125
ACTIONAID
Donate online at: http://www.actionaid.org.uk/
or call: 01460 238 023
UNICEF ASIA EARTHQUAKE CHILDRENÃS EMERGENCY APPEAL
Donate online at: http://www.unicef.org.uk/asiaearthquake
or call: 08457 312 312
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS / RED CRESCENT
http://www.ifrc.org/index.asp (Main)
http://www.redcross.org.sg/press_bayofbengal_appeal.htm (Singapore)
http://www.indianredcross.org (India)
http://redcrescent.org.my/campaigns/donate.html (Malaysia)
http://www.redcross.or.th/english/home/index (Thailand)
ACTIONAID
http://www.actionaid.org.uk
UNICEF
http://www.unicef.org
SAVE THE CHILDREN
http://www.savethechildren.org
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS/MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/index.shtml
OXFAM
http://www.oxfam.org.uk
ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY
http://www.architectureforhumanity.org
DONATING DIRECTLY TO INDIAN ORGANIZATIONS
There are a very large number of humanitarian, secular and non-sectarian organizations in India currently providing relief and rehabilitation in the affected areas. The appeals Awaaz receives are regularly posted at http://www.awaazsaw.org/weblog/awaaz_wlog.html. Note that some Indian organizations are registered to receive funds from abroad, others are not - check with individual organizations before sending donations.
PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY MONEY TO AWAAZ
ABOUT AWAAZ - SOUTH ASIA WATCH
AWAAZ - SOUTH ASIA WATCH is a UK-based secular network of individuals and organisations committed to monitoring and combating religious hatred in South Asia and in the UK.
Awaaz was established following the violence and killings of Indian citizens, mainly Muslims, in the state of Gujarat after February 2002. The Gujarat carnage was a turning point in the recent history of India and showed how genocidal Hindutva forces have established a firm hold on many aspects of Indian society.
Awaaz campaigns against religious fundamentalist control of the state, civil society, political life and personal freedoms. Awaaz campaigns for secular democratic state institutions and civil life where all citizens have the right to live in peace and security and fully participate in the political and civil process and decision-making.
Awaaz stands for peaceful resolution of problems between South Asian countries, opposes violation of human rights, and opposes discrimination based on caste, gender, religion, region, ethnicity, race, sexuality and other factors. Awaaz unreservedly condemns the political use of religion to attack individuals and minorities including Muslims in India, Christians and dalits across South Asia, Hindus in Bangladesh and Shias and Ahmaddis in Pakistan.
Awaaz - South Asia Watch is supported by leading civil rights and community organisations in the UK and abroad, including Aaj Kay Naam, Asian Women's Refuge, Friends of India / All India Christian Council (UK), Cambridge South Asia Forum, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF), Council of Indian Muslims (UK), Dalit Forum for Social Justice (UK), India Forum, Indian Muslim Federation (UK), Indian Workers Association (GB), National Civil Rights Movement (NCRM), Oxford South Asia Forum, PeopleÃs Unity, Southall Black Sisters, PeopleÃs Empowerment Alliance, Southall Monitoring Group, Women Against Fundamentalism and many more. Active members include Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and people of no faith.
AWAAZ - South Asia Watch
PO Box 304
Southall
Middlesex
UB2 5YR
UK
Email: contact@awaazsaw.org
PRESS RELEASE: Wednesday, January 05, 2005
ENQUIRIES TO: contact@awaazsaw.org
http://www.awaazsaw.org
HELP RECONSTRUCT LIVES & COMMUNITIES
BEWARE OF FUNDING HATE
The death toll from the deadly tsunami which has affected several Asian countries has now crossed 150,000; hundreds of thousands more people and communities have been devastated by the loss of families, friends, homes and property. Numerous dedicated volunteers and organizations have come together to organize relief and rehabilitation. Awaaz - South Asia Watch strongly supports these efforts and urges all generous individuals and organizations in the UK to continue to support these initiatives even after the media coverage inevitably decreases. The greatest need is for immediate relief followed by rehabilitation and the restoration of livelihoods - to provide people with the means to get back on their own feet.
To ensure that their well-intended donations do not fall into the wrong hands, Awaaz urges donors to channel their contributions through organizations with established secular, humanitarian and non-violent credentials. Unfortunately, there are a small handful of self-interested and chauvinist groups associated with religious fundamentalism in these regions that will make use of this disaster to expand their networks and cultivate religious and sectarian hatred. Some of these groups have powerful front organizations in the UK. Even if their appeals today sound well-meaning, the longer term consequences of the activities of religious fundamentalist groups are the same: fundamentalism creates strife between communities, polarizes societies, and foments hatred and large-scale violence.
BEWARE OF FUNDING SECTARIAN HATRED
We have been asked by numerous supporters in the UK about which charities they should donate money to. Supporters have expressed concerns that money they donate does not aid the expansion of extremist Hindutva organizations in India or extremist Islamist organizations in Indonesia, Malaysia or elsewhere. The following UK organizations have been or currently are under investigation by the Charity Commission.
Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS UK)
Sewa International (SI UK)
Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK (VHP UK)
Sewa International UK / Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh UK are currently under investigation by the Charity Commission in relation to the funds raised in the UK following the Gujarat Earthquake in 2001. Sewa International UK and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK are also leading members of the ëdisaster relief task forceà recently launched by the Hindu Forum UK. Sewa International UK, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh UK and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK are all associated with a violent, fascistic, anti-minority Indian organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS or its affiliates have been repeatedly implicated by numerous independent national and international human rights groups for involvement in violence and the promotion of hatred, including the anti-Muslim Gujarat pogroms in 2002 and the anti-Christian violence in 1998-2000. Following both the Orissa supercyclone in 1999 and the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, RSS front organizations expanded their activities considerably in these two
states. Awaaz believes that the tsunami disaster provides an important opportunity for the RSS to expand its activities in southern Indian states, including Tamil Nadu, areas where it has had relatively limited success. For further information, see http://www.awaazsaw.org and http://www.stopfundinghate.org.
HOW TO DONATE
We urge you to donate to neutral, humanitarian, non-sectarian organizations.
DONATING FROM THE UK
DISASTERS EMERGENCY COMMITTEE (DEC)
Donate online at: http://www.dec.org.uk/
or call: 0870 60 60 900
OXFAM
Donate online at: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/
or call: 0870 333 2700
BRITISH RED CROSS
Donate online at: http://www.redcross.org.uk/
or call: 08705 125 125
ACTIONAID
Donate online at: http://www.actionaid.org.uk/
or call: 01460 238 023
UNICEF ASIA EARTHQUAKE CHILDRENÃS EMERGENCY APPEAL
Donate online at: http://www.unicef.org.uk/asiaearthquake
or call: 08457 312 312
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS / RED CRESCENT
http://www.ifrc.org/index.asp (Main)
http://www.redcross.org.sg/press_bayofbengal_appeal.htm (Singapore)
http://www.indianredcross.org (India)
http://redcrescent.org.my/campaigns/donate.html (Malaysia)
http://www.redcross.or.th/english/home/index (Thailand)
ACTIONAID
http://www.actionaid.org.uk
UNICEF
http://www.unicef.org
SAVE THE CHILDREN
http://www.savethechildren.org
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS/MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/index.shtml
OXFAM
http://www.oxfam.org.uk
ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY
http://www.architectureforhumanity.org
DONATING DIRECTLY TO INDIAN ORGANIZATIONS
There are a very large number of humanitarian, secular and non-sectarian organizations in India currently providing relief and rehabilitation in the affected areas. The appeals Awaaz receives are regularly posted at http://www.awaazsaw.org/weblog/awaaz_wlog.html. Note that some Indian organizations are registered to receive funds from abroad, others are not - check with individual organizations before sending donations.
PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY MONEY TO AWAAZ
ABOUT AWAAZ - SOUTH ASIA WATCH
AWAAZ - SOUTH ASIA WATCH is a UK-based secular network of individuals and organisations committed to monitoring and combating religious hatred in South Asia and in the UK.
Awaaz was established following the violence and killings of Indian citizens, mainly Muslims, in the state of Gujarat after February 2002. The Gujarat carnage was a turning point in the recent history of India and showed how genocidal Hindutva forces have established a firm hold on many aspects of Indian society.
Awaaz campaigns against religious fundamentalist control of the state, civil society, political life and personal freedoms. Awaaz campaigns for secular democratic state institutions and civil life where all citizens have the right to live in peace and security and fully participate in the political and civil process and decision-making.
Awaaz stands for peaceful resolution of problems between South Asian countries, opposes violation of human rights, and opposes discrimination based on caste, gender, religion, region, ethnicity, race, sexuality and other factors. Awaaz unreservedly condemns the political use of religion to attack individuals and minorities including Muslims in India, Christians and dalits across South Asia, Hindus in Bangladesh and Shias and Ahmaddis in Pakistan.
Awaaz - South Asia Watch is supported by leading civil rights and community organisations in the UK and abroad, including Aaj Kay Naam, Asian Women's Refuge, Friends of India / All India Christian Council (UK), Cambridge South Asia Forum, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF), Council of Indian Muslims (UK), Dalit Forum for Social Justice (UK), India Forum, Indian Muslim Federation (UK), Indian Workers Association (GB), National Civil Rights Movement (NCRM), Oxford South Asia Forum, PeopleÃs Unity, Southall Black Sisters, PeopleÃs Empowerment Alliance, Southall Monitoring Group, Women Against Fundamentalism and many more. Active members include Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and people of no faith.
AWAAZ - South Asia Watch
PO Box 304
Southall
Middlesex
UB2 5YR
UK
Email: contact@awaazsaw.org
January 02, 2005
CSFH Urges Responsible Giving in the Wake of Tsunami Tragedy
[January 2, 2004]
GIVE WELL, GIVE WISELY!
CSFH Urges Responsible Giving in the Wake of Tsunami Tragedy
Friends,
It is time to give and give generously. As the death toll climbs past
150,000 and the world comes to grips with the devastation caused by the
deadly Indian Ocean tsunamis, numerous organizations across Asia are
stepping up to organize relief and rehabilitation. We at the Campaign to
Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) urge all individuals in the U.S. and elsewhere
to support them by donating generously.
However, our responsibility does not end with giving. It is also our
combined responsibility to ensure that our funds do not end up in
sectarian hands, and that this tragedy does not turn into another
opportunity for communal groups to gain foothold in our plural society.
KEEPING ACCOUNTABILITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE ON THE AGENDA
The response to the tsunami tragedy in the US has been heartening, with
hundreds of dedicated volunteers making enormous effort to raise
resources for relief operations in India and elsewhere. Many of these
groups have a long history of carrying out grass-roots, non-sectarian
development work in India, and have been able to effectively mobilize
their networks at this time to administer relief. They can be counted
upon for working closely with affected communities in a transparent and
accountable manner. The immense loss of life in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and
Thailand, makes it incumbent on us to consider giving to our suffering
Asian neighbors, either through transnational organizations or through
informal networks of local community-based organizations. (See below
for a partial list of such organizations).
Many of us are also members of a variety of linguistic, regional and
cultural associations. Because of their social and cultural affinities,
such organizations are well equipped to intervene in on the ground
activities. Precisely because of these reasons, sectarian groups try to
use them as vehicles to advance their own agendas. We therefore urge you
all to not only take an active part in the fund raising activities of
these organizations but also be involved in discussions on how and where
the funds are to be used. Disasters of this kind are occasions when we
should be on high alert to keep social justice at the top of the agenda.
STAY CLEAR OF SECTARIAN GROUPS SUCH AS IDRF, HSS, SEVA INTERNATIONAL AND
VHPA
Please remember the lessons of past natural calamities: Latur earthquake
in 1993, Orissa cyclone in 1999 and the massive earthquake that shook
Gujarat in 2001. Sectarian groups in the guise of non profits have
swooped in on these areas engulfed in tragedy (funded in large part by
unsuspecting donors in the US) and established their presence in the
grief-stricken communities on the pretext of providing relief. Not only
did this lead to unequal disbursement of relief among various
communities, but it also caused further fracturing of these struggling
communities along lines of caste and religion.
This time too, the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Sewa International and Vishwa Hindu
Parishad-America (VHPA) have all put out appeals for Tsunami relief.
CSFH has done extensive research on these groups and traced their
linkages to the parent organization in India: the violent and
anti-minority Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). (See
http://www.stopfundinghate.org for details.) Affiliates of this
organization have been implicated by numerous national and international
human rights groups as having engineered the anti-Muslim Gujarat pogroms
in 2002 and the anti-Christian violence in 1998-2000. RSS itself is a
secretive organization, openly sectarian in its operations, and is not
legally permitted by the Government of India to accept funds from
abroad; consequently, its US affiliates (IDRF, HSS etc.) are raising
funds for organizations like Sewa Bharati, Jana Sankshema Samiti and
Vivekananda Kendra in India, all of which are intrinsic parts of RSS
operations in India and follow its divisive ideology.
We urge everyone to make the responsible choice in favor of supporting
secular groups with a long-standing commitment to the pluralistic ethos
and democratic ideals of India. On our part, we are following up on our
work of the past several years some of which is documented at
http://www.stopfundinghate.org . We will be happy to assist you with any
information and would really appreciate it if you will alert us to the
debates and discussions that you are involved in by emailing us at
info@stopfundinghate.org
We are building a FAQ to be posted on our site and it will be helpful to
know the kinds of questions being raised. Meanwhile, please feel free to
use the list below as a starting point to identify the kind of
organizations that are worthy of support.
Thank you
CSFH (http://www.stopfundinghate.org)
------------------------------------------------------
A partial list of non-sectarian, grassroots groups involved in relief
operations:
1. AID - Association for India’s Development
http://www.aidindia.org/CMS/
2. American India Foundation
http://www.aifoundation.org/
3. Asha For Education
http://www.ashanet.org/
4. India Literacy Project
http://www.ilpnet.org/news/Tsunami/index.html
5. India Relief and Education Fund
http://iref.homestead.com/
6. Indians for Collective Action
http://www.icaonline.org/
7. Pratham
http://www.prathamusa.org/
8. Singh Foundation
http://singhfoundation.org
9. Vibha
http://www.vibha.org/emergencyrelief/
These groups are partnering with various mass-based organizations and
NGOs in India, such as the Tamil Nadu Science Forum, the National
Fishworkers Forum, Vidyarambam, APVVU (agricultural workers’ union in
AP), People's Watch, Bharathi Trust and Bhoomika Trust.
Among international organizations, Doctors Without Borders is reputed to
be the most committed and experienced with meeting disasters with
professional expertise. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org
The International Red Cross has country specific operations which may be
accessed and supported through the following links:
Sri Lanka: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/sri_lanka!Open
Indonesia: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/indonesia!Open
Thailand: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/thailand!Open
Additionally, we urge you to also spread the word about the Red Cross's
'Family Links' initiative which helps locate separated family members
throughout the affected region. You can find out more about this from
http://www.icrc.org/home.nsf/home/webfamilylinks
GIVE WELL, GIVE WISELY!
CSFH Urges Responsible Giving in the Wake of Tsunami Tragedy
Friends,
It is time to give and give generously. As the death toll climbs past
150,000 and the world comes to grips with the devastation caused by the
deadly Indian Ocean tsunamis, numerous organizations across Asia are
stepping up to organize relief and rehabilitation. We at the Campaign to
Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) urge all individuals in the U.S. and elsewhere
to support them by donating generously.
However, our responsibility does not end with giving. It is also our
combined responsibility to ensure that our funds do not end up in
sectarian hands, and that this tragedy does not turn into another
opportunity for communal groups to gain foothold in our plural society.
KEEPING ACCOUNTABILITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE ON THE AGENDA
The response to the tsunami tragedy in the US has been heartening, with
hundreds of dedicated volunteers making enormous effort to raise
resources for relief operations in India and elsewhere. Many of these
groups have a long history of carrying out grass-roots, non-sectarian
development work in India, and have been able to effectively mobilize
their networks at this time to administer relief. They can be counted
upon for working closely with affected communities in a transparent and
accountable manner. The immense loss of life in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and
Thailand, makes it incumbent on us to consider giving to our suffering
Asian neighbors, either through transnational organizations or through
informal networks of local community-based organizations. (See below
for a partial list of such organizations).
Many of us are also members of a variety of linguistic, regional and
cultural associations. Because of their social and cultural affinities,
such organizations are well equipped to intervene in on the ground
activities. Precisely because of these reasons, sectarian groups try to
use them as vehicles to advance their own agendas. We therefore urge you
all to not only take an active part in the fund raising activities of
these organizations but also be involved in discussions on how and where
the funds are to be used. Disasters of this kind are occasions when we
should be on high alert to keep social justice at the top of the agenda.
STAY CLEAR OF SECTARIAN GROUPS SUCH AS IDRF, HSS, SEVA INTERNATIONAL AND
VHPA
Please remember the lessons of past natural calamities: Latur earthquake
in 1993, Orissa cyclone in 1999 and the massive earthquake that shook
Gujarat in 2001. Sectarian groups in the guise of non profits have
swooped in on these areas engulfed in tragedy (funded in large part by
unsuspecting donors in the US) and established their presence in the
grief-stricken communities on the pretext of providing relief. Not only
did this lead to unequal disbursement of relief among various
communities, but it also caused further fracturing of these struggling
communities along lines of caste and religion.
This time too, the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Sewa International and Vishwa Hindu
Parishad-America (VHPA) have all put out appeals for Tsunami relief.
CSFH has done extensive research on these groups and traced their
linkages to the parent organization in India: the violent and
anti-minority Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). (See
http://www.stopfundinghate.org for details.) Affiliates of this
organization have been implicated by numerous national and international
human rights groups as having engineered the anti-Muslim Gujarat pogroms
in 2002 and the anti-Christian violence in 1998-2000. RSS itself is a
secretive organization, openly sectarian in its operations, and is not
legally permitted by the Government of India to accept funds from
abroad; consequently, its US affiliates (IDRF, HSS etc.) are raising
funds for organizations like Sewa Bharati, Jana Sankshema Samiti and
Vivekananda Kendra in India, all of which are intrinsic parts of RSS
operations in India and follow its divisive ideology.
We urge everyone to make the responsible choice in favor of supporting
secular groups with a long-standing commitment to the pluralistic ethos
and democratic ideals of India. On our part, we are following up on our
work of the past several years some of which is documented at
http://www.stopfundinghate.org . We will be happy to assist you with any
information and would really appreciate it if you will alert us to the
debates and discussions that you are involved in by emailing us at
info@stopfundinghate.org
We are building a FAQ to be posted on our site and it will be helpful to
know the kinds of questions being raised. Meanwhile, please feel free to
use the list below as a starting point to identify the kind of
organizations that are worthy of support.
Thank you
CSFH (http://www.stopfundinghate.org)
------------------------------------------------------
A partial list of non-sectarian, grassroots groups involved in relief
operations:
1. AID - Association for India’s Development
http://www.aidindia.org/CMS/
2. American India Foundation
http://www.aifoundation.org/
3. Asha For Education
http://www.ashanet.org/
4. India Literacy Project
http://www.ilpnet.org/news/Tsunami/index.html
5. India Relief and Education Fund
http://iref.homestead.com/
6. Indians for Collective Action
http://www.icaonline.org/
7. Pratham
http://www.prathamusa.org/
8. Singh Foundation
http://singhfoundation.org
9. Vibha
http://www.vibha.org/emergencyrelief/
These groups are partnering with various mass-based organizations and
NGOs in India, such as the Tamil Nadu Science Forum, the National
Fishworkers Forum, Vidyarambam, APVVU (agricultural workers’ union in
AP), People's Watch, Bharathi Trust and Bhoomika Trust.
Among international organizations, Doctors Without Borders is reputed to
be the most committed and experienced with meeting disasters with
professional expertise. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org
The International Red Cross has country specific operations which may be
accessed and supported through the following links:
Sri Lanka: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/sri_lanka!Open
Indonesia: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/indonesia!Open
Thailand: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/thailand!Open
Additionally, we urge you to also spread the word about the Red Cross's
'Family Links' initiative which helps locate separated family members
throughout the affected region. You can find out more about this from
http://www.icrc.org/home.nsf/home/webfamilylinks
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