Manufacturing A Conspiracy

The Nanavati Commission Report is based on untenable theories and statements of bribed witnesses. In a painstaking investigation, ASHISH KHETAN rebuts the report and uncovers the deliberate and malicious subversion of the truth by the state

Photo: REUTERS

THE FIRE that engulfed coach S- 6 of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on the morning of February 27, 2002, would, in the months that followed, burn its way across Gujarat leaving wounds that show little signs of abating six years later. In its aftermath, more than 2,000 people, many of them women and children, were massacred and thousands rendered homeless in one of independent India’s worst communal pogroms. Chief Minister Narendra Modi justified the bloodbath as a ‘natural’ reaction to the events at Godhra. Even before the first tentative facts could be established, even before any kind of inquiry was initiated, even before the postmortems on the 59 people killed in the fire could be completed, Modi, in a public declaration, labeled the Godhra incident ‘a one-sided, collective, terrorist attack by one community’.

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Even now, the events of that morning at Godhra station are shrouded in mystery. Not because the truth is difficult to find, but because no one wants it revealed. Modi and his government have buried the truth under layers of lies, obfuscation and fabricated evidence, layers almost too dense to penetrate. The Gujarat police prepared 18 chargesheets — one main and 17 supplementary — on the Godhra incident and thousands of pages of fictionalised narration, a deadly concoction of fake eyewitness accounts and coerced and bribed testimonies. In Godhra, 134 of its residents, all of them Muslim, were held accused by the police. Till date, the case has not seen trial. A Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed by the Supreme Court, is investigating the matter. The apex court order for investigation presupposed that the Gujarat police investigation into the Godhra incident needed further scrutiny. The court appointed two retired police officers from outside Gujarat as part of the SIT. Two commissions of inquiry were also ordered by the state and the central governments. A onemember commission, of Justice KG Shah, formed by the Gujarat Government on March 6, 2002, was later turned into a two-member commission with Justice GT Nanavati as its chairperson. In September 2004, the Railway Ministry instituted a second commission of inquiry under the chairmanship of Justice UC Bannerjee, a retired Supreme Court judge who, in a speedily concluded report, stated that the fire in coach S-6 was accidental. In the meantime, the Nanavati-Shah Commission continued to drag on, with crores of taxpayers’ rupees spent on proceedings every month. Justice Shah died earlier this year. A new member, Justice Akshay Mehta, a retired Gujarat High Court judge, took his place.

Finally, six years after it was constituted, the commission concluded its proceedings on the Godhra fire and submitted its report to Modi on September 25, 2008. In a shocking conclusion, the commission declared that the fire was the result of pre-mediated conspiracy hatched by a respected religious head of the Muslims of Godhra, Maulvi Umarji. In reaching this conclusion, the commission relied solely on the police chargesheets, a mesh of patent lies, which the Supreme Court refused to believe when it ordered the SIT investigation.

THE COMMISSION THAT FAILED
In May 2007, with the Nanavati-Shah Commission showing no signs of nearing a conclusion, TEHELKA undertook a six-month investigation to get at the truth of Godhra. Uncovering a web of lies, the TEHELKA tapes demolished the police case by exposing how the investigating officer was biased against Muslims and had bribed crucial witnesses into lying on oath to suit the police case. The TEHELKA tapes revealed that crucial police witnesses were not present at the scene of crime, but had given false testimonies only to help the Hindutva cause. The tapes also raised questions over the impartiality of the Nanavati- Shah Commssion and of its two members. In a disturbing statement, the Gujarat Government’s Special Prosecutor, Arvind Pandya, told the TEHELKA undercover reporter that Justice Shah was ‘the BJP government’s man’ and that Justice Nanavati ‘was only after money’.

In a face-saving exercise after the TEHELKA investigation broke, Justice Nanavati quickly called for the TEHELKA tapes but has since remained silent on the issue. The TEHELKA reporter was not summoned, nor did the commission examine the tapes. The commission also failed to initiate an inquiry into the revelations made in the TEHELKA tapes. Resolutely overlooking the incriminating evidence that TEHELKA had gathered, against the police and its investigation, the commission in its report bought the police investigation as gospel and arrived at its conclusions.

Apart from failing to act on the TEHELKA tapes and assuming a sort of amnesia about the revelations the TEHELKA investigation made, the commission failed on several other counts as well.

• Though the commission limped along for six years, it failed to examine the Godhra accused in person. The commission did not issue notice to the accused to appear before it. This not only violates the basic principles of justice, it is also in clear violation of the Commission of Inquiry Act (Section 8[b]).

• While relying heavily on the confessions of the accused recorded by the police, the commission adamantly refused to take into account the retractions filed by the accused, by way of affidavits before the commission.

• The commission, while banking upon confessions made under the now repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), failed to take into account that the Central Review Committee had ruled in favour of removing POTA from the Godhra case.

• While the police accepted that the karsevaks on board the Sabarmati Express had attempted to abduct a girl named Sophia Bano Shaikh at Godhra station, the commission has gone a step ahead and claimed that Sophia had lied. There is overwhelming evidence, including Sophia’s testimony before the commission, to show that karsevaks did indeed lay hands on her and would have dragged her off the platform had she not managed to escape and take shelter in the station master’s cabin.

• While several eyewitnesses testified that it was the karsevaks on the train who first pulled the chain, the commission refused to take their testimony into account. Instead, without stating concrete reasons for its assumptions, the commission concludes that ‘it appears that the chain was not pulled by the passengers’.

• The police in their chargesheet claimed that the second pulling of the chain was the handiwork of the accused, who were said to have rotated the disc on the outside of the coach. During the proceedings of the commission, advocate Mukul Sinha, who was representing the riot victims, dismantled the police theory by proving that the disc mechanism was outdated and not fitted in the Sabarmati Express. The commission accepted that the police claim was misplaced. But, it went on to come up with a new theory of how the brakes could be applied from outside the train. Its report says, ‘Earlier, the brake mechanism could be activated by merely turning the disc but now that cannot be done. Rotation of the disc now does not operate the clapet valve. But even now by raising the cam which is between the disc and the clapet valve, a person familiar with these parts can easily operate them from outside and activate the vacuum brake’. How can a commission that has found a police claim untrue suggest a new possibility to support the police theory? For the police and the commission to say that the Godhra fire was premeditated conspiracy and not a spontaneous riot, it was important to attribute the second pulling of the chain to the accused.

• The commission examined several eyewitnesses from among those aboard coach S-6. None among the non-karsevak passengers claimed to have seen a mob carrying carboys filled with inflammable liquid. Only the karsevaks who had been involved in a scuffle with Muslim tea vendors at Godhra station claimed that the Muslim mob was carrying carboys filled with petrol. It is their testimony the commission relied on to conclude that the accused set fire to the train by pouring petrol from carboys. The commission evidently failed to see that the same karsevaks, on whose testimony it was basing its verdict, had a clear motive to lie, being participants in the riot, and that their testimonies were at variance with the eyewitness accounts of other passengers.

THE TRUTH ABOUT GODHRA
Against the six-year-long Nanavati-Shah-Mehta proceedings, TEHELKA’s six-month undercover operation demonstrated conclusively that the Gujarat police had systematically built a diabolically false case, to turn a spontaneous communal riot into conspiracy by the Muslims of Godhra and their political and religious figures.

Modi has sought moral refuge in the claim that the Gujarat genocide was an unprompted, impulsive reaction to premeditated action. The Modi administration’s justification of the pogrom has largely hinged on the culpability of eight men: the president of the Godhra Municipal Council, Mohammad Hussain Kalota Shaikh; four Muslim corporators — Bilal Haji, Farooq Mohammad Bhana, Salim Shaikh and Dhantiya; two Muslim advocates — Rol Amin Hussain Hathila and Habib Karim Shaikh; and the local religious head, Maulvi Umarji.

Ghosts of Godhra The wounds from the tragedy are yet to heal, though six years have passed

For six years, the people, the courts, and the media have been told that these men are the S-6 killers. Subtract these eight religious and political figures from the 128 accused in the Sabarmati Express fire and those left are sundry hawkers, labourers and truck drivers. Subtract the political and religious names from the list of the Godhra accused and what remains is a criminal but spontaneous act of arson. Subtract the political and religious angle to the Godhra tragedy, and Modi’s diabolic action-reaction theory comes crashing down.

So, were these eight men culpable? Was conspiracy hatched by Maulvi Umarji as claimed by police and now by the Nanavati Commission?

Is that the truth? This is the story of what TEHELKA found.

THE ARRIVAL: THE SABARMATI EXPRESS ENTERS GODHRA RAILWAY STATION
7:43 am, February 27, 2002. The Sabarmati Express, train no. 9166 up, carrying karsevaks returning from Ayodhya arrives at platform no.1 at Godhra railway station. The train is nearly five hours behind schedule.

THE FIRST PROVOCATION: KARSEVAKS CLASH WITH MUSLIM TEA VENDORS ON THE PLATFORM
A key element in the Godhra case is the question, what catalysed the riot? The Modi Government claims it was a pre-planned act that had no provocation. This is belied by the testimonies of two survivors of the inferno aboard coach S-6. Neither were karsevaks or members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or the Bajrang Dal. Ordinary passengers on their way to Ahmedabad, where they were working at the time, these two men gave neutral and unprejudiced eyewitness accounts. Both gave written statements to the police that there was a quarrel on the platform between the karsevaks and tea vendors. These are their testimonies.

• Laltakumar Balkrishan Jadhav, 32, Deputy Manager (Civil) in the Gandhigram Gas Authority of India Limited, travelling from hometown Guna in Madhya Pradesh to Ahmedabad. Jadhav had reservation for seat 32 in coach S-7 but says the karsevaks on the train did not allow him to enter the coach. ‘Thereupon,’ says Jadhav in his statement, ‘I requested an army man standing at the door of S-6 and he spared me some space and allowed me to keep my bags and stand there. Thus I had started my journey on February 26, 2002 at 20.15pm in coach no. S-6 of Sabarmati Express. On February 27, 2002, Sabarmati Express had arrived on platform no. 1 of Godhra railway station. I had not alighted from the train. At that time there was some verbal quarrel between the karsevaks and activists of Bajrang Dal, and the hawkers.’

• Govindsingh Ratnasing Pande, 46, army man, posted at Ahmedabad, travelling from Lucknow to Ahmedabad: ‘I had reservation on berth number 9 in coach no. S-6 in Sabarmati Express. The train arrived at 1:15am at Lucknow station on February 26, 2002. I boarded coach no. S-6 and found five to six ladies sitting on seat no. 9. I showed them my ticket and told them to vacate the seat. Thereupon one person from Bajrang Dal, of age 50-52 years, told me the ladies would find it difficult to go to the upper berth and asked me to take berth no. 3. After putting my luggage under berth no. 9, I seated myself on berth no. 3. There were about 250 people in the coach. Most of the passengers were sitting without reservation and were members of the Bajrang Dal. On every station where the train would stop, Bajrang Dal members would get down on the platform and shout. February 27, 2002, between 7:30 am and 7:45 am, the train had reached platform no.1 of Godhra railway station. I therefore got up. Ten to twelve members of the Bajrang Dal had alighted from my coach and started to shout slogans of Jai Shri Ram. At that time, I had felt that members of the Bajrang Dal had also alighted from other coaches and were shouting slogans of Jai Shri Ram. There was loud noise on the platform. After three to four minutes, a few people from the Bajrang Dal came running inside the coach and after closing the door shouted that a quarrel had taken place on the platform and stones were being pelted. They told everybody to shut the windows and doors.’

WHAT THE NANAVATI COMMISSION REPORT SAYS
The commission report does not dispute that an altercation occurred between the karsevaks and the Muslim tea vendors on the platform. The report reads: ‘It shows that many passengers had come out on the platform from their coaches for taking tea or other drinks, eatables, etc. At that time there were many vendors on the platform. They were standing at different places. Sidik Bakar, a tea vendor, was standing near the book stall at his usual place, which was little away on its west. Some ramsevaks who had taken tea from him had an altercation with him as regards payment of money for the same. According to the ramsevaks they had paid for the tea but Sidik Bakar had maintained that the ramsevaks had not done so. In this altercation, some ramsevaks had given two stick blows to Sidik Bakar.’ After citing eyewitness accounts of several karsevaks and ordinary passengers, the report comes to the conclusion that ‘their evidence when read together, establishes that a quarrel had taken place between ramsevaks and a tea vendor’.

THE SECOND PROVOCATION: SOME KARSEVAKS TRY TO ABDUCT A MUSLIM GIRL FROM THE PLATFORM
There was more than a tea-stall wrangle on the platform. Some karsevaks had tried to abduct a Muslim girl from the platform. Sophia Bano M. Shaikh, just under 18, accompanied by her mother and sister, was visiting relatives in Godhra and had come to the railway station to board a train for her hometown, Vadodara.

In her police statement, Sophia testifies: ‘My mother, sister and I left from my uncle’s house on foot at around 7:30am and came to Godhra railway station. The EMU train departs from platform no. 1, so we were waiting near the water house on platform no. 1. At this time, the Sabarmati train coming from Dahod side pulled in on the platform. Some people from the train came down to the platform. They had saffron stripes around their heads with something like Jai Bajrang written on them. They were shouting Jai Shri Ram. These people appeared to have got down from the train to have tea and snacks. In the meantime, some of these people wearing saffron stripes came to the place where we were standing. They were beating a person with a beard on his face, using a stick. He was a Muslim, and they were shouting, ‘Beat… kill Musalmans,’ and therefore we were frightened. Thereupon, my mother, sister and I started to go towards the musafirkhana. At this time, one man from the same group came from behind and pressed my mouth with his hands and tried to drag me towards the coach of the train. When my mother saw this, she raised cries ‘Save her… save her.’ Thereupon the person who had caught hold of me, let me go. We were very frightened and stood inside the office of the booking clerk. After some time, we gave up the idea of going to Vadodara and came out of the office, took a rickshaw and went back to the house of my aunty in Signal Falia [a Muslim neighbourhood adjacent to the Godhra railway station].” According to Sophia, the karsevaks also tried to abduct another burqa-clad woman on the platform. However, the police have failed to identify the woman or record her statement till date.

Also, though the police recorded the statements of Sophia and her family on March 28, 2002 — a month after the Godhra incident — they neither mentioned the episode in the offi- cial narration of events nor included Shaikh’s statements in the first chargesheet, which was filed on May 22, 2002. The statements of Sophia and her family were only made part of the first supplementary chargesheet filed six months later, on September 20, 2002, detailing the chain of events that led to the train being set on fire.

WHAT THE NANAVATI COMMISSION REPORT SAYS
Though the Gujarat police made considerable delay over including Sophia Bano’s abortive abduction in the chargesheet, they never disputed the veracity of the incident. But the Nanavati Commission went where the police had not, and used the flimsiest of grounds to rubbish the girl’s statement. According to the commission: ‘After careful scrutiny of her evidence, the commission comes to the conclusion that the version given by her does not appear to be true. If they had really gone to the station for going to Vadodara, they would have boarded Sabarmati Express train as it would have taken them to Vadodara earlier, but they had not done so.”

Residents of Godhra, both Muslim and Hindu, will vouch for the fact that those travelling from Godhra to Vadodara, always prefer the EMU train over long distance ones. Also, since the scheduled arrival time of the Sabarmati Express was at 2:55 am, how could Sophia and her family, who started their journey at 7 am, think of travelling by the Sabarmati Express? That too when everyone knew the train was already overcrowded with rowdy karsevaks.

The commission further says, ‘The alleged attempt to abduct her was made while they were near the book stall. The evidence discloses that there were many persons on the platform. Apart from passengers, many Muslim vendors were there. The railway staff was present in their offices. Some policemen were also present. If she had raised shouts to save her, then they would have been heard at least by some persons who were nearabout but not a single vendor or anyone else has come forward to support her version.”

Now, all the Muslim tea vendors who could have testified to Sophia Bano’s attempted abduction have been named as accused in the Sabarmati Express case and are in jail. Even if they had corroborated Sophia Bano’s statement to the police, their words would not have been recorded by an irreparably polarised force. As for the karsevaks, when their original testimonies do not even mention their scuffle with Muslims on the platform, an admission of their attack on Sophia is unlikely in the extreme. However, from the commission’s report, it appears that the commission entertained the expectation that the karsevaks would narrate their attempted abduction of Sophia Banu, without which her testimony stood nullified.

The commission report further reads, ‘Her explanation that she was much frightened and had giddiness and, therefore, they had decided not to go back to Vadodara on that day, does not appear to be true. That ramsevak’s behaviour was not such as to create so much fear. He had immediately gone away from that place. He alone had made an attempt to abduct her.”

Isn’t it natural for a small-town girl accompanied only by her mother and sister and with no male family member escorting them to drop travel plans after so terrifying an incident?

The commission report continues, ‘It is also difficult to believe that a ramsevak had attempted to abduct a Ghanchi Muslim girl from Godhra railway station and that too in the presence of so many persons. The likely consequences of such an act would have deterred any ramsevak from doing so.’

If the karsevaks felt no deterrence when it came to beating up Muslim tea vendors at Godhra station, a fact which the commission acknowledges, what would stop them from misbehaving with a Muslim girl who was accompanied only by two women?

THE FIRST HALT: THE CHAIN IS PULLED; THE SABARMATI EXPRESS STOPS JUST OUTSIDE THE STATION
After the altercation with the karsevaks, the Muslims on the platform started pelting stones at the train. Pande, the army man aboard coach S-6, and many other passengers have corroborated this. After a scheduled stop of five minutes, the Sabarmati Express started its onward journey at 7.47 am.

According to train driver Rajendrarao Raghunath Rao, he got the signal to leave at about 7:45 am. ‘The train had started moving toward Vadodara,’ says Rao in his statement, ‘when the chain was pulled at about 7:47 am and the train stopped. My assistant driver and guard found that the chain had been pulled from coach numbers 83101, 5343, 51263 and 88238, and we informed the station master about this through a walkie-talkie.’

There is some confusion about the coach numbers from which the chain was pulled. But the important fact is that chain pulling did indeed happen from four different coaches, in all of which it was set right. Eyewitness accounts suggest that it was the karsevaks who were responsible as some of their colleagues had been left behind at the station. The Nanavati Commission Report does not dispute this fact.

The remnants A worker drapes a body that is too charred for recognition at the Godhra station

Throughout this time, stone pelting continued from the direction of the platform. This is corroborated by both Pande and another passenger, Amarkumar Jamnaprasad Tiwari, 19, who was travelling with his father, mother, sister- in-law and nephew from Uttar Pradesh, their native state, to Ahmedabad.

According to Pande, ‘After running for about 30 to 40 metres, a chain was pulled and the train stopped. Thereupon, more members of the Bajrang Dal came running and boarded our coach [S-6]. At that time, there was normal stone pelting from the platform side.’

Tiwari too says the train had stopped moments after it left the platform. ‘I heard the sound of stone pelting on the coach,’ he says, ‘and some stones had started coming into the coach through the windows.’

In the middle of this chaos, the chain pulling was set right in four coaches and the train began to move again.

THE FATEFUL HALT: THE CHAIN IS PULLED AGAIN, THE SABARMATI EXPRESS HALTS NEAR CABIN A
8 am. After the train had moved a short distance, a chain was pulled once again and the Sabarmati Express came to a halt near Cabin A. The time is recorded by Assistant Station Master (ASM) Harimohan Meena, who was manning the cabin. Rao says he saw a 900- 1,000-strong mob near Cabin A, pelting stones at the train. The stone pelting had obviously intensified and had begun to break the window panes of coaches. Both Meena and the survivors of S-6 testify to this.

Amarkumar Tiwari says that all through the time the train started and stopped for the second time, there was constant stone throwing from the left. ‘On account of this, window panes had broken in our coach and my brother’s wife, my mother and I were hit by these stones.’

Pande, the army man, says much the same. ‘When the train stopped for the second time, about a kilometre from the station, there was heavy stone throwing from the left side. As the doors and windows of the coach were shut, a few panes got broken. Some passengers sustained injuries from the stones and had started bleeding.’

The Nanavti Commission confirms that the crowd continued to grow after the scuffle at the platform.

GROUND ZERO: THE FURY OF THE MOB INTENSIFIES
The mob outside the train had chased it down to Cabin A. Rao saw the mob but was separated from it by eight to ten coaches. The police had not yet reached the spot. So, the two officials closest to Ground Zero were ASMMeena and his colleague, AK Sharma, both manning Cabin A.

This is what Meena told the police in his statement on March 1, 2002 — a day after the Godhra incident. “At about 7:55 am, the train had again started. Within five minutes, it came near Cabin A. At that moment, the driver of Sabarmati Express blew the chain pulling whistle and the train stopped. About eight to ten coaches had already passed beyond Cabin A. I got down from the cabin to set the chain right and enquire about what had happened. On going near the train, I found a mob of about 200 to 500 people running towards the train from the back and surrounding area. They were pelting stones. I came running back to my cabin and from the cabin I instructed passengers sitting in the coaches to shut the windows and doors. A few passengers who came down were beaten up by the mob.’

What exactly transpired between ASM Meena and the mob?

Meena is silent on the issue in his statement to the police. When TEHELKA’s undercover reporter met him, however, Meena —

The bogey The charred S-6 compartment is in the background as officials try to sort out the bodies Photo: REUTERS

unaware that he was talking to a journalist or being recorded — said that when he came down and asked the mob why they were chasing the train, a few people replied that one of their people had been abducted by the karsevaks on the train. Meena also said that he heard a few in the mob suggesting that the coach be set on fire to drive people out of it so they could find the missing person. But he saw no swords or any other sharp weapon or inflammable material being carried by the mob. On the contrary, according to him, the mob mainly consisted of women and children carrying sticks and pelting stones.

TINDERBOX: A JAM-PACKED S-6 COACH IS A DEATH TRAP ON WAIT
By all accounts, S-6 was bursting at its seams. According to eyewitnesses, it was carrying about 250 passengers, at least three times its normal capacity. Its doors and windows were shut. Further, to prevent the mob from forcing their way into the compartment, the passengers had blocked the doors with their luggage.

As S-6 survivor, army man Govindsingh Rajput, says, ‘I and three or four other people opened a door on the right side of the coach with great effort because to prevent the people outside from opening the doors, passengers had blocked the doors on both sides of the coach with their luggage.’

Laltakumar Jadhav corroborates this. ‘Karsevaks, Bajrang Dal activists and other passengers had assembled their baggage near the doors of the coach to see that nobody could enter the coach.’

Outside, having tried unsuccessfully to dissuade the mob from attacking the train, the frightened Meena ran back to Cabin A. His colleague, Sharma, never stepped out. In his police statement, Meena said: ‘I was frightened and came running back to Cabin A. I asked Akhil Kumar Sharma to close all the doors and windows of the cabin. Sharma had already informed the DSS (Deputy Station Superintendent), Godhra, and the Vadodara control room on the railway phone that the Sabarmati Express was being pelted by stones to a great extent by a mob. After informing the RPF (the Railway Police Force), the phone started ringing and Sharma and I started replying the same.”

Inside the train too, no one could quite make out what was happening outside. As Pande and co-passenger Rajendrasingh Rajput

Last rites Unidentified victims were cremated in a mass ceremony

have testified, the karsevaks and Bajrang Dal activists had got everybody in coach S-6 to shut the doors and windows, making it impossible to see what was happening outside.

The same thing had happened in most of the other coaches. Saburbhai Parmar, a karsevak who was traveling in a general compartment, says in his police statement, ‘As there was stone throwing we had closed the windows and doors and sat inside the coach… I was frightened and did not see any person.’ Another karsevak in a general compartment, Sanjay Sukhadiya, says the same. ‘I had seen a mob of about 1,000 to 1,500 persons pelting stones at the train and coming nearer and nearer. We ramsevaks were all frightened and had not opened the windows and doors.’

SMOKE AND FIRE: EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS BY S-6 PASSENGERS
Meena first spotted smoke rising from S-6 at about 8:30 am. Passengers aboard S-6 also first saw the smoke and then the fire. This is what Pande said in his statement on April 1, 2002: ‘Members of the Bajrang Dal and other passengers were shouting and hiding the women and children below the last seat. After 10 to 15 minutes, all of a sudden, smoke erupted from seat number 72 and within sometime flames were seen. I and three or four other people who were sitting on the upper seat got down and opened the door on the right side of the coach with great effort because to prevent the people outside from opening the doors, passengers had blocked the doors on both sides of the coach with their luggage. Some other people and karsevaks also alighted from the coach.’

According to Rajendrasingh Rajput, who was travelling with his father, ‘A mob of about 100 to 150 people in the northern direction were throwing stones at the train. The people in this mob were armed with pipes, dhariyas and swords. As I came out through the window, they hit me on my leg, shoulder and hands with pipes and stones. My father had felt suffocated by the smoke in the coach. I had also sustained burn injuries on both my hands and ears. Thereafter, people from Godhra had taken me and my father to the Godhra civil hospital.’

EMERGING CONTRADICTIONS: DID THE MOB HAVE PETROL AND KEROSENE? AMONG THE SURVIVORS OF S-6, ONLY THE KARSEVAKS CLAIM THIS WAS SO
Neither Meena — the only official who witnessed the mob at close quarters — nor any of the non-karsevak

The Departed People gather around the bodies of the karsevaks who died in the train blaze

survivors from S-6 saw the mob carry inflammable material such as petrol, kerosene or diesel. Nor did they see coach S-6 being set on fire. Satish Misra, a Vadodara businessman who was travelling in S-6 from Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh with his family, and who lost his wife in the blaze, says, ‘Upon hearing that there was stone pelting on the coach, we had closed the windows and doors... As there were fumes of smoke on account of the fire I could not see any people pelting stones or who set the coach on fire.’ Four among the surviving karsevaks of coach S-6 — Amrutbhai Patel, Dineshbhai Patel, Rambhai Patel and Nitinbhai Patel, all residents of Mehsana, all of whom had gone to the Ramjap Yagna at Ayodhya — have also stated in their first statements, recorded on March 8, 2002, that they did not see anyody carrying inflammable material or setting the coach on fire. They said they had fallen unconscious because of the smoke inside the coach.

The only people who claim to have seen the mob carrying inflammable materials are some of the S-6 karsevaks as well as those in other coaches. Interestingly, all these karsevaks admit that they had shut the doors and windows of their coaches because of the heavy stone pelting, yet in the same breath they claim they saw the mob armed with all kinds of inflammable material.

PANIC AND PREJUDICE: THE KARSEVAKS’ TESTIMONIES, HOW RELIABLE ARE THEY?
In a telling detail that throws their credibility into question, many of the surviving karsevaks from S-6 who claim to have seen the mob carrying inflammable materials have given identical statements — word for word. For instance, four karsevaks (all part of the same group and all from Mehsana) — Jayantibhai Patel, Babubhai Patel, Dwarkabhai Patel and Hirabhai Patel — who were travelling with the VHP’s Mehsana district unit president, have given statements that mirror each other right down to the last comma. But even these four didn’t claim they had seen the mob setting the coach on fire, they only claimed to have seen the mob carrying inflammable material.

What exactly is the inflammable material the karsevaks claim to have seen? The answer is bewildering in its range: acid bulbs, petrol bulbs, plastic containers carrying petrol and kerosene, mashaals or kakde (burning rags tied to a stick).

In their statements, the karsevaks have also mentioned every conceivable way in which the fire could have been started in coach S-6. According to them, the mob was throwing acid bulbs and petrol bulbs inside the coach, sprinkling petrol and kerosene on the coach from outside, pouring kerosene and petrol into the coach through broken windows, and throwing burning rags in through broken windows.

Karsevaks as far from S-6 as those travelling in coaches S-2 and S-4, and the general compartments, have claimed they saw all of the above. How, from such a distance, they could have known what was being thrown is not something they are able to explain.

Can the testimonies of these karsevaks then be taken at face value? The answer is no. Many of the testimonies of the karsevaks who survived from coach S-6 are biased and incorrect. It is the karsevaks from coach S-6 who, along with karsevaks from other coaches, were involved in the scuffle on the platform — a fact corroborated by Pande and even substantiated by the police. Yet, none of the karsevaks mention the scuffle or the attempted abduction at the platform in their original statements. They cut straight to the stone pelting by a Muslim mob and overlook what triggered it, thus betraying their prejudice.

What’s worse is that as things progressed, many karsevaks manufactured statements convenient to the prosecution as and when required. Whenever the police came up with a new theory to explain the cause of the fire, they would approach the karsevaks who would readily corroborate the new theory by making new statements — many of them a reversal of earlier ones.

AN IMPARTIAL EYE: WAS THERE A NEUTRAL SURVIVOR, NOT A KARSEVAK BUT AN ORDINARY PASSENGER, FROM S-6 WHO SAW A POSSIBLE SOURCE OF THE FIRE?

The answer is yes. A family of four — Lallan Prasad Chaurasiya, his wife Jankiben, their 13- year-old son, Gyan Prakash, and their toddler, Rushabh — were aboard coach S-6. The Chaurasiyas were travelling from their native town of Allahabad and had two reserved seats in coach S-6 — seats 8 and 72. However, karsevaks had occupied seat no. 72, so the entire family travelled on seat no. 8. Later they all shifted to seat no. 6. This is what 13-year-old Gyan Prakash said in his statement recorded on March 4, 2002: ‘Because of the stone pelting, people in the coach had closed the windows and doors of the coach. However, the stone pelting continued on our coach and as a result the windowpanes were broken. Before the iron window could be closed, some burning substance had come inside and immediately there was black smoke inside the coach.’ Gyan Prakash’s parents, Lallan Prasad and Jankiben, both confirmed that a burning substance had fallen in through a window, after which smoke filled the coach. None of the Chaurasiyas, however, said they had seen the mob carrying petrol or kerosene or containers filled with inflammable liquid.

Another passenger by the name of Poonam Kumari, who was sitting on berth no. 24, has stated that burning rags were thrown inside the coach through the window near her seat. She added that her father-in-law had tried to extinguish one such rag by stamping with his shoes over it. Thereafter, there was smoke in the compartment. She saw the flames only after she got out of the coach.

Laltakumar Jadhav said that though he did not see the mob starting the fire, after he escaped from the burning coach he did see ‘some people from the mob trying to further set coach S-6 on fire by putting grass, quilts, etc., below the coach’. But Jadhav too did not see the mob carry inflammable material or plastic containers.

WHAT THE NANAVATI REPORT SAYS
On the possible cause of the fire, the report cites the testimonies of several passengers aboard coach S-6, both ordinary passengers and karsevaks.

Was the crowd throwing burning rags inside the coach?

The report cites the testimonies of several eyewitnesses like Lallan Prasad (ordinary passenger), Poonam Kumari (ordinary passenger), Radheyshayam Mishra (retired military havaldar), Ramfersingh (ordinary passenger) Mukeshbhai Makwana (karsevak), Gayatridevi (karsevak), Bhupatbhai (karsevak), Ashwinbhai (karsevak) and Savitaben (karsevak), who all confirm that the mob outside the train was throwing burning rags inside the coach.

Was the crowd carrying carboys filled with inflammable liquid?

Only karsevaks like Mukesh bhai Makwana, Gayatridevi, Bhupatbhai, Ashwinbhai and Savitaben have testified that the mob was armed with carboys of inflammable liquid. Only the karsevaks have stated that the mob poured inflammable liquid inside the coach.

Why couldn’t the ordinary passengers see what the karsevaks saw?

The Nanavati Commission has not addressed this. It has not bothered to answer the most basic question as to why ordinary passengers like Maheshbhai Chaudhary, Jayantibhai, Ramfersing, Satishkumar Mishra, Lalanprasad, Govindsing, Poonam Kumari and Hariprasad Joshi (an inspector with the IT dept) did not see carboys filled with inflammable liquid amongst the mob. Why has it failed to see that the karsevaks, being party to the scuffle with the Muslim tea vendors and participants in the ensuing communal riot, were no neutral eyewitnesses but rather prejudiced and motivated individuals?

THE QUESTION: CONSPIRACY OR SPONTANEOUS RIOT?
A detailed study of statements and eyewitness accounts, like the ones above, clearly suggests that the burning of coach S-6 was an instance of spontaneous vandalism that escalated out of control. Provoked by the attempted abduction and the fight they had with the karsevaks, the station hawkers began pelting stones at the train, and, then, as the mob gathered strength and force, a few in the mob eventually threw the burning rags into the coach that started the fire.

But instead of investigating the facts, Chief Minister Narendra Modi visited Godhra and the same evening announced that the burning of coach S-6 was an act of premeditated terrorism carried out by one community against another. The crime of a few had morphed into the sin of a community. There was absolutely no evidence to support his claim. But the claim had been made by the head of the state government, and the police started a massive exercise of manufacturing evidence.

The trigger? Modi, the CM, said the riots were a reaction to this Photo: REUTERS

Over the next three years, the police and the BJP government used all the resources at their disposal — power, money, men — to prove that the Godhra incident was a conspiracy hatched by local Muslim political and religious figures, a claim which Modi and his

party have used to justify the post-Godhra slaughter of Muslims in the state.

Six years later, the Nanvati Commission, instead of separating fact from fiction and calling the state machinery’s bluff, took the chargesheet the police had produced at face value.

MANUFACTURING TRUTH: NINE MEMBERS OF THE BJP’S GODHRA UNIT TURN UP AND CLAIM THAT MUSLIM POLITICIANS OF GODHRA WERE PRESENT IN THE MOB
Apart from police personnel and the fire brigade, the first independent witnesses to come forward and identify people from the mob were nine BJP men, among them a few important functionaries of the party’s Godhra unit. Between them, these nine men claimed to have identified 41 Muslims from Godhra town as part of the mob. Among those they named were the president of the Godhra Municipal Council, Mohammad Hussain Kalota Shaikh; four Muslim corporators — Bilal Haji, Farooq Mohammad Bhana, Salim Shaikh and Dhantiya; and two Muslim advocates — Rol Amin Hussain Hathila and Habib Karim Shaikh.

The first question is, what were these nine BJP men doing at the station? None was travelling on the Sabarmati Express nor did any have plans to board a train. What were they doing there, early in the morning? They have a single explanation between them: ‘On February 27, 2002, as the activists and karsevaks who had gone to Ayodhya were to come back on the Sabarmati Express, I and other activists were waiting at 6:30 am at Godhra railway station to welcome them and serve them tea and snacks.” All nine name eight VHP leaders who they claim were travelling on the Sabarmati Express, and whom they were to greet with refreshments. The statements of all nine were recorded on February 27, 2002, the day of the incident.

What exactly did these nine BJP men witness? They claim they saw everything — the assembling of the mob, the sharp-edged weapons and inflammable material they were carrying, and the actual starting of the fire. In nine identical statements they say, ‘At about 7:45 am the Sabarmati Express arrived on platform no. 1 at Godhra railway station… After welcoming activists, friends and other karsevaks, we had served them tea and snacks. When the train started, we had bid farewell with slogans of Jai Shri Ram. After this, we were still standing at the platform talking with local friends from Godhra, when the train stopped because of chain pulling. After some time, the train started again. When it reached near the ‘A’ cabin, again there were whistles of chain pulling. When we looked towards that direction, we heard cries from Signal Falia and saw a mob of about 900 to 1,000 people, including women, men and boys, rushing towards the train. We all ran towards the train, and when we reached near the said cabin, the people from Signal Falia armed with swords, dhariyas, sticks, and iron rods had rushed there and some others had started heavy stone throwing at the train. These people were shouting, ‘Saale Hinduon ko maar daalo, mandir banane jaate hai… kaat dalo’ (Kill these damn Hindus. They want to build a temple — cut them down!) Five to six people who had plastic containers of liquid in their hands had sprinkled the liquid from the said containers upon one compartment and set it ablaze. We had all stayed under the cover of the cabin.’

The only variation in the nine statements of the BJP men is the names of culprits. Each of them has identified a different set of people from the mob.

Who are these nine BJP members?

• Kakulkumar Pathak: Son of Nitinkumar Hariprasad Pathak, Kakul is a resident of Dwarkanagar, Bamroli Road, Godhra. He joined the BJP in 1984 and, besides being in the construction business, has always been an important member of the party’s Godhra unit. He was twice appointed general secretary of the BJP’s Yuva Morcha in Godhra. Following this, he was appointed joint secretary of the Godhra Nagar BJP. At present, he is a taluka panchayat delegate and the convenor of the BJP’s media cell in Godhra.

Mulchandani, 37, is a resident of Jilelal Falia and a prominent businessman in Godhra town. He is also a senior BJP functionary. Two years before the Godhra incident, he had lost the election for the seat of corporator. At present, he is the vice-president of the Godhra Municipal Council.

• Janakbhai Kantilal Dave: Dave, 35, is a resident of village Samli in Godhra and is a civil contractor.

• Rajeshbhai Vithalbhai Darji: Darji, 43, is a resident of Shrimali Sheri, near Juhapura vegetable market, Godhra. He is a businessman affiliated with the BJP. About a year before the incident, Kalota and Muslim corporators had ousted him from the presidency of the Godhra Municipal Council. At present, he is the BJP’s Panchmahal district president.

• Dilipbhai Ujamsibhai Dasadiya: A businessman, Dasadiya, 39, lives at Prabha Road, Godhra. At present, he is president of the BJP’s town unit.

• Deepakbhai Nagindas Soni: A jeweller, Soni, 49, is a resident of Soniwad, Godhra. At the time of the Godhra incident, Soni was a BJP corporator.

• Hasmukhlal Tejardas Adwani: A businessman, Adwani, 49, lives in Zulelal Falia.

• Chandrashekhar Nachuram Sonaiya: Sonaiya, 43, who is in the agriculture business, is a resident of Paramhans Society, Bamroli Road, Godhra.

• Manoj Hiralal Adwani: Adwani, 29, lives on Prabha road, Godhra.

SIMMERING RIVALRIES: GODHRA’S POLITICAL CONTEXT
The town of Godhra is divided into 12 wards, each with three corporator seats. In the December 1999 elections for the Godhra Municipal Council, the BJP won 11 seats, independent Muslim candidates won 16, the Congress five, and four seats were bagged by pro-BJP independents.

Murli Mulchandani, the current Godhra Municipal Council vice-president, had also contested but lost. To form the House in the council, a party needs 19 seats. The BJP formed the House with the support of five Congress corporators and three independent Muslim corporators. Raju Darji, a BJP corporator (who claims to be a witness to the fire) was elected president. Deepak Soni, another BJP corporator (and also one of the party’s nine witnesses), was appointed president of the education board formed under the council.

A year after the elections, 24 corporators — 16 Muslim, five Congress and three Hindu independents — joined ranks against the BJP and moved a no-confidence motion. The BJP lost the House. These 24 now elected Kalota as Godhra Municipal Council president. During a no-confidence motion debate, a Muslim corporator, Bilal Haji, had beaten up the BJP corporator, Raju Darji, and a criminal complaint was lodged against him. In 2002, when the Sabarmati Express fire killed 59 Hindus, Raju Darji, Deepak Soni and Murli Mulchandani, along with six other BJP members, claimed they saw Kalota, Bilal Haji and three other Muslim corporators ‘attack the train’.

These nine BJP men claimed they could identify the 41 Muslims they named — including pickpockets and truck drivers — because they were all Godhra residents. Apart from Dilip Dasadiya, who has retracted his statement saying he was not present at Godhra station when the incident happened, the remaining eight have stuck to their story. However, Kakul Pathak and Raju Darji have made minor changes in their lists of the accused in their statements. Pathak changed the name Ismail Chunga to Chungi, while Darji said it was Haroon Majid Dao, not Haroon Hamid Dao he meant to accuse.

Apart from the BJP members, the police also took statements from three Hindu hawkers — Vinod Chauhan, Arvind Solanki and Ramesh Solanki — who used to sell bhajiyas at the station. When the stone pelting first began, Chauhan claims he had gone to buy milk from Razzak Kurkur’s shop. ‘At that time, men, women and children shouting ‘maaro, maaro’ were going towards the Sabarmati Express near Cabin A. After giving the milk, Kurkur closed his shop and ran towards the cabin. I came onto the railway track through a hole in the wall.’ Chauhan claims he then saw six Muslim hawkers running from the direction of the station towards the cabin, where the train was stationed. The other two bhajiya sellers confirm all of this. None of them named a Muslim corporator or, in fact, any important Muslim figure as being present among the mob.

Kurkur — who becomes crucial as the investigation progresses — ran a store where he sold an assortment of wares: milk, cigarettes, paan, clothes and cutlery. The Muslim hawkers from the Godhra railway station comprised a majority of his customers. On top of his shop, Kurkur had constructed a guesthouse called Aman Guest House, where truck drivers stayed.

THE FIRST SEIZURE: SAMPLES FROM THE SITE ARE SENT FOR FORENSIC EXAMINATION
The first panchnama of objects lying outside coach S-6 was made on February 27, 2002, between 1 pm and 3 pm. It was recorded that there were cement sleepers lying about 50 ft east of electric post no. 468/36, which, in turn, was north of electric post no. 468/35. The police seized three carboys — one white and two black, each of ten-litre capacity — from these sleepers, near Malla Garage, an auto repair shop, on February 27 itself. These were sent for examination to the forensic laboratory in Gandhinagar the same day.

It is pertinent to note that Malla Garage and a few trucks parked near it were burnt down by karsevaks hours after the Sabarmati Express blaze. This has been corroborated by Rajendra Vyas, Ahmedabad city VHP president, who was in charge of the karsevaks travelling on the train. Vyas confided to the TEHELKA undercover reporter that he and other karsevaks had burnt down the garage on February 27. Given this, it is hard to tell if the carboys seized from near the tracks were used to burn the garage or the train.

The first panchnama of the contents of coach S-6 was recorded the next day, on February 28, between 5.45 pm and 7.35 pm. Burnt residue from nine cubicles and the toilets of S-6 were sealed and sent for forensic examination. The first forensic analysis of these materials from both outside and inside the coach was given on March 20, 2002, (report no. fsl/ee/2002/c/287). This report, prepared by DB Talati, assistant director, Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Ahmedabad, claimed the presence of residual petrol hydrocarbons in 25 samples — nine of these were from outside the coach, 16 from inside. The remaining 20 samples did not disclose the presence of hydrocarbons.

The report’s reliance on samples from inside the coach is doubtful since hundreds of onlookers and visitors, including Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other ministers, had visited the site and entered S-6 before the samples were taken. Material inside the coach could, therefore, have been tampered with or planted. The reliability of the samples and carboys from outside the coach has already been brought into question by VHP leader Rajendra Vyas’ confession on the TEHELKA spycam that karsevaks had burnt down Malla Garage hours after the incident.

The same evening, the police seized two petrol pumps near the railway station — Hakamia Petrol Pump and MHN Patel Petrol Pump — and took samples of petrol from both places. The owners of both filling stations were Muslim but, while the salesmen at Hakamia Pump (popularly known as Kala Bhai’s petrol pump) were Hindu, all the salesmen at the second pump were Muslim. The police recorded statements from salesmen at both pumps asking if they had sold loose petrol on February 27 or the day before the incident. They all said they had not.

Crucially, in his report dated April 26, 2002, Talati stated that he could not give a clear opinion on whether the petrol detected in some of the samples in and around coach S-6 (as per the March 20 FSL report) and the petrol detected in the samples from Hakamia Pump were from the same source.

On May 1, 2002, a huge amount of material (370 kilos) was collected again from inside coach S-6 and sent for forensic examination. The FSL report of May 17, 2002, however, failed to detect petrol in these samples. (The forensic reports have been provided to TEHELKA by the Ahmedabad based NGO, Jan Sangharsh Manch)

SCIENCE AND FICTION: THE FORENSIC REPORT QUASHES SOME CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND SETS UP A NEW ONE
The FSL’s May 17 report draws the following conclusions:

• A large number of marks caused by stones were observed on the southern outer side of the burnt S-6 coach. Stones and glass pieces from broken windows were found scattered inside the coach. It would seem safe to deduce that the windows on the southern side were primarily broken by high intensity stone pelting, while the windows on the northern side were broken due to the heat of the fire.

• It appears the fire had started from the eastern side of the coach and thereafter spread rapidly to the western side.

• It appears that the intensity and proportion of burning inside the coach was very high in up to 80 percent of the east to west side. In the remaining 20 percent, the intensity of the burning was less.

• There was no sign of corrosive fluid like acid used in the fire.

• It appears that the windows of the coach were closed at the time of the fire.

• At the place where the train stopped, the windows of coach S-6 were at a height of 7 ft above the ground. In this circumstance, it was not possible to throw inflammable fluid into the coach from a bucket or carboy outside, because in doing this most of the fluid would fall back outside. If this had happened, a major part of the fluid would have fallen around the track outside. This would have caught fire too and caused damage to the outer, bottom part of the coach. An examination of the coach and tracks showed no such effect on the coach. Taking this and the burning pattern of the coach into consideration, it can be concluded that no inflammable liquid was thrown into the coach from outside.

• There also appears to be no possibility that inflammable liquid was thrown into the coach through the door of the bridge to the compartment.

In effect, the state’s own forensic report ruled out the claims made in the statements of the nine BJP members and several karsevaks. There was neither a trace of acid bulbs nor the possibility that inflammable liquid had been thrown inside the coach from outside.

In a curious twist, the forensic team then decided to carry out an experiment. ‘By standing in the passage between the compartment of the bogey and the northern side of the door on the eastern side of the bogey, water was poured towards the western side from a container with a wide mouth like a bucket. In this case, a major part of the bogie was covered with 60 litres of water. By pouring the water in this manner, the water went only towards the west and no part of it came out of the door, nor did it go towards the latrine side,’ the report reads.

And what conclusion does the report draw from this experiment?

‘On the basis of the above experimental demonstration,’ it says, ‘a conclusion can be drawn that 60 litres of inflammable liquid was poured towards the western side of the coach by using a wide-mouthed container and by standing on the passage between the northern door of the eastern side of coach S-6 and the compartment… The coach was set on fire immediately thereafter. In the period after the train had started from Godhra railway station, the intensity of the fire, the degree of burning of the objects that were burnt inside the bogie, etc., are taken into account, it can also be concluded that a large quantity (around 60 litres) of highly inflammable fluid was used to set off the aforesaid fire, and that the fire had spread very quickly.’

DESIGNING EVIDENCE: THREE KARSEVAKS DO A VOLTE-FACE AND CLAIM THEY SAW MUSLIMS POURING LIQUID ALONG THE FLOOR OF S-6
We do not know when the forensic team carried out this experiment, but since the report was finalised on May 17, 2002, it can safely be presumed that the experiment must have been carried out at least a couple of weeks earlier.

Around this time, three karsevaks claimed for the first time that they had seen a liquid being poured on the floor of the coach from the Godhra side. Till May 7, 2002, the police had only karsevak S-6 survivors and the nine BJP members as witnesses. Going by their statements, the police had only four plausible causes for the fire. Inflammable liquid thrown inside the coach from outside, inflammable liquid sprinkled on the outside of the coach, acid bulbs thrown into the coach, and burning mashaals flung into the coach.

The first three theories were about to be demolished by the forensic evidence that would arrive in ten days. So what did the police do? On May 8, 2002, — two weeks before filing the first chargesheet, nine days before the forensic report was finalised, and certainly after the forensic team had carried out its experiment — the police approached Dineshbhai Patel, Rambhai Patel and Nitinbhai Patel who had earlier said they had fainted at the time of the fire and had therefore seen nothing. In an extraordinary volte-face, the three now made claims of a liquid poured on the floor of the coach from the Godhra side. They also claimed that a burning mashaal had been flung inside the coach through a window. And, for the first time, the three acknowledged that a quarrel had occurred between karsevaks and tea vendors on the platform. Due to this quarrel, a few fellow karsevaks from their coach had been left behind; they had later come running into the coach, after the first chain-pulling had stopped the train — a fact the karsevaks had omitted in their original statements. Like other statements in the case, these additional statements were identical.

So, the police now had a fifth possible source of the fire — an inflammable liquid poured on the floor of the coach from the Godhra side.

Two weeks later, when the forensic report was made public on May 17, 2002, the team ruled out the first three possibilities, didn’t comment on the fourth, and concluded that the fifth possibility was the real cause of the fire.

THE FIRST CHARGESHEET: THE IDEA OF COMMUNAL CONSPIRACY IS HATCHED
In the first chargesheet filed on May 22, 2002, the police briefly mentioned the scuffle between the karsevaks and the platform vendors. However, no reference was made to the abduction attempt on Sophia Bano. The police did mention the two times the train had been stopped because of chain-pulling. The first instance they attributed to ‘someone in the train’. But the second instance was attributed to the accused. According to the chargesheet, ‘The train reached Cabin A of Godhra railway station at about 8:05 am. At that time, in order to fulfill their intentional and illegal conspiracy, the accused persons pulled the chain of the Sabarmati Express in coach no. S-6, changed the disc of the train and got the train stopped.’ The police then claim that the accused, with a mob of 900 to 1,000 persons, armed with deadly weapons and highly inflammable liquid in carboys, pelted stones at the passengers and set coach S-6 on fire by using ‘petrol-like inflammable liquids’ (SIC).

The police claim that the Godhra fire was a conspiracy left many basic questions unanswered. Who among the accused were the main conspirators? When was the conspiracy hatched? What was the motive? Since the train was originally scheduled to arrive at 2:55 am, did the conspirators hatch the conspiracy days in advance or only after they came to know that the train was late? In addition, the police didn’t produce evidence to prove that the accused had pulled the chain. Nor could they tell from where the ‘petrol-like inflammable liquid’ had been procured. The only conspirators the police named were the mob and the 54 Godhra Muslims under arrest.

In the name of evidence, the police had statements from police and fire personnel, from the nine BJP members, from the karsevaks and the forensic report. The trouble is, all of this evidence contradicts itself. Further, the police claim that a few railway policemen had seen the mob setting the train on fire is also highly suspicious as none of the survivors have mentioned the presence of police at the time of the incident.

DESIGN HEAD: NOEL PARMAR, A NEW INVESTIGATING OFFICER, TAKES OVER
On May 27, 2002, — five days after the first chargesheet — a new investigating officer was appointed. Noel Parmar, ACP, Vadodara city control room, takes over from KC Bawa, Western Railways Dy SP.

In an undercover conversation with Parmar, currently posted as Deputy SP, Railway Police, in Vadodara, TEHELKA found Parmar a far from neutral investigator. Even snatches of his conversation are enough to expose his deep-seated hatred of Muslims. Here are some examples: ‘During Partition, many Muslims of Godhra migrated to Pakistan… In fact, there is an area called Godhra Colony in Karachi… Every family in Godhra has a relative in Karachi… They are fundamentalists… This area, Signal Falia, was completely Hindu but gradually Muslims took over… In 1989 also there were riots… Eight Hindus were burnt alive… They all eat cow meat since it comes cheap… No family has less than ten children… they are all complete fundamentalists, associated with the Tablighi Jamaat.’

THE HINDU HAND: THE ENTRY OF AJAY BARIA, A ‘KNOW-ALL’ WITNESS
The first chargesheet was a mesh of conflicting claims. To bring method to the madness, the police produced a new witness — a tea vendor, a Hindu — on July 9, 2002, a month and a half after the first chargesheet, and five months after the actual incident. Ajay Baria, the new witness, was a tea vendor at Godhra station and unemployed at the time. He claimed that on the morning of February 27, 2002, just after the arrival of the Sabarmati Express, nine hawkers — all Muslim — whom he knew since they all sold wares at Godhra station, forcibly took him to the house of Razzak Kurkur. Once there, the nine went inside Kurkur’s house and brought out carboys filled with ‘kerosene’ (he doesn’t specify the number of carboys and he specifically uses the word kerosene). One of the hawkers, he said, then forced him to load a carboy onto a rickshaw while the other hawkers loaded the rest. (If there were already nine hawkers to load the carboys, why did they need Baria to load just one? Also, why would Muslims take a Hindu tea vendor along to execute a communal crime?) Baria said the rickshaw was parrotcoloured but he could not see its registration number. Once the carboys were loaded, the hawkers forced him to go along. The frightened Baria jumped into the rickshaw, which the hawkers then drove up to Cabin A, where the train was standing. According to him, a few hawkers first tried to set coach S-2 on fire. When they failed, they cut the vestibule between coaches S-6 and S-7. Having done that, six hawkers went inside S-6 and poured ‘kerosene’ along the coach floor. Three others sprinkled kerosene through the windows into the coach. A vendor then threw a burning cloth into coach S-6. Thus, claim Baria and the police, the coach was set on fire.

THE CHAIN-PULLERS: TWO MORE MUSLIM TEA VENDORS ARE TORTURED AND TUTORED INTO MAKING A STATEMENT
With Baria’s statement, several pieces fell into place for the police. They had found a witness to claim that ‘kerosene’ was brought to the spot, to explain how the accused gained entry, and how the ‘kerosene’ was poured into the coach along the floor before the coach was set on fire. But one hitch remained. The police still had to prove that it was the conspirators who had stopped the train near Cabin A. Surely they couldn’t have relied on Hindu karsevaks to stop the train exactly where they wanted so that Godhra Muslims could burn it.

To get around this, the police came up with two more witnesses — both Muslim — who now confessed that it was they who had pulled the chain that brought the train to a halt near Cabin A. The statements of these witnesses — Illias Mullah Hussain and Anwar Sattar Kalandar, part-time hawkers and part-time truck drivers — were recorded on July 9 and July 26, 2002. Both said they were present at the station when the karsevaks beat up the tea vendors. After this fight, they said they were told by Salim Paanwala (a paan-seller at the station who has been absconding since the incident) and Razzak Kurkur that the karsevaks had abducted a Muslim girl from the platform and they had to stop the train. So, both along with another vendor called Hussain Suleman Gijju (who, according to the police, is still absconding) scaled different coaches, turned the discs and stopped the train. Both also named all the accused whom Baria had named in his statement, corroborating that they were armed with sticks, pipes and iron rods. Both said they had seen the parrot-coloured rickshaw parked near the coach. However, they went a step ahead of Baria and provided the rickshaw’s registration number and its owner’s name. Both also claimed to have seen the nine vendors, who Baria alleged had set S-6 on fire, near the coach carrying carboys and later running toward Signal Falia. At this point, they said, they also heard the nine hawkers saying, ‘The train is properly set on fire from inside.’

Both Hussain and Kalandar have since retracted their statements. In an interview with TEHELKA, the two narrated how they were illegally confined and tortured by Parmar and his team. ‘Every night, the cops would come and put a log of wood on my legs and then walk over it,’ said Hussain. ‘I was given electric shocks on my genitals,’ said Kalandar. They were made to memorise a statement handed to them by the police. ‘The cops would come and ask us how much we had memorised from the hand-written notes we were given,’ both say. After two weeks of confinement, the duo were produced in court and their statements recorded. Parmar then told them to leave Godhra and not keep contact with local Muslims. After about a year and a half, Hussain and Kalandar returned to Godhra and retracted their statements in affidavits filed before the Supreme Court.

TELLTALE: THE POLICE FILE THE FIRST SUPPLEMENTARY CHARGESHEET. THERE IS A CRUCIAL SLIP
Armed with Baria, Hussain and Kalandar’s statements, the police filed the first supplementary chargesheet on September 20, 2002. For the first time, they acknowledged the karsevaks’ abduction attempt. The police claimed that Salim Paanwala — who they now alleged was one of the main conspirators — had used the attempt to gather a mob and make Hussain, Kalandar and Gijju stop the train. Baria’s statement had given the police the rest of their ammunition. But they made one serious mistake. Baria had claimed nine Muslim hawkers had loaded carboys onto a rickshaw in his presence. He had also claimed that one of the hawkers had made him carry a carboy up to the rickshaw, which is when he claimed he smelt ‘kerosene’. However, Baria never mentioned the number of carboys, their size or the quantity of ‘kerosene’ each may have had. But in their supplementary chargesheet, the police noted, without evidence, that the vendors had loaded eight carboys, each carrying 20 litres of petrol. (Baria, of course, had used the word kerosene, not petrol.)

In effect, the police said the accused carried 160 litres of petrol to the train. How had the police quantified the carboys and the liquid in them when neither Baria, Hussain or Kalandar had given numbers? Did they already have a theory in place? Were they manufacturing fake evidence to prove that theory? Where did the 160 litres of petrol — a huge quantity by any measure — come from? Where had the conspiracy been hatched? The first supplementary chargesheet did not have answers.

THE MISSING LINK: A SECOND SUPPLEMENTARY CHARGESHEET IS FILED
Between the first and the second supplementary chargesheet, filed on December 19, 2002, only one development took place: the arrest of Razzak Kurkur. Apart from this, the second supplementary chargesheet was a replica of the first, and the loopholes remained unaddressed. The police still could not explain who had planned the conspiracy, where and how it was planned, and what exactly the plan was.

THE PLUG IN THE HOLE: JABIR BIN YAMIN BAHERA IS ARRESTED. HE NAMES MAULVI UMARJI AS THE MASTERMIND
On January 22, 2003, the police arrested Jabir Bin Yamin Bahera, a hawker at Godhra railway station who had been absconding. Thirteen days after his arrest, the police produced him in court and had his confession recorded. This is what Bahera claimed. On the eve of the Godhra incident, on February 26, 2002, he was sitting at a tea stall when three hawkers, among them Salim Paanwala, came up to him and said that Razzak Kurkur wanted to see him. When he reached Kurkur’s house, Kurkur instructed him to buy petrol. Along with a few other Muslim hawkers, Bahera then went to Hakamia Pump and bought 140 litres of petrol in seven carboys, each holding 20 litres. This was stored at Kurkur’s house, located behind his shopcum- guesthouse at Signal Falia. After that, at about 11:30 pm, Bahera says he was standing at Kurkur’s shop when two people — Bilal Haji and Farukh Bhana, both corporators — arrived. The corporators told him they had just met ‘Maulvi Sahab’ who had conveyed the message that the Sabarmati Express was coming and they were to burn coach S-6. After that, Salim Paanwala went to the station to enquire if the train was running late. When he came back with the information that the train was late by four hours, Bahera and the other hawkers went home and gathered again near Kurkur’s Aman Guesthouse at 6 am on February 27, 2002.

According to Bahera’s confession, after watching television for a while, he came out of the guesthouse at around 7:15 am, and saw a hawker named Mahboob Latika running from the direction of the station shouting, ‘Beating… beating.’ Bahera went near the Parcel Office and saw five other Muslim hawkers pelting stones at the train. After that, Baria, along with the nine Muslim hawkers, went to Kurkur’s house and loaded the petrol-filled carboys (Bahera does not mention the number) into a tempo. Kurkur then told them to take the tempo near Cabin A. Kurkur and Paanwala followed on an M-80 scooter, with Paanwala driving and Kurkur riding pillion, carrying a carboy. On reaching Cabin A, they first approached coach S-2. There, Bahera says, he saw a few hawkers armed with sticks, pipes and dhariyas trying to break down the train’s doors and windows. From coach S-2, they proceeded to S-6, where the hawkers had cut the vestibule between it and S-7 with a pair of scissors. Bahera says he and a few other vendors then entered S-6 with five carboys and poured petrol along the floor of the coach. A few other hawkers sprinkled petrol from outside through the broken windows. When the passengers started running helter-skelter, Bahera and a few others stole a gold ring from a passenger who had jumped out of the burning coach. He and his accomplices then ambushed an armyman and hit him with a rod. Later, one of them escorted the armyman to the road. Through all this, the mob had continued to pelt stones at the train. A stray stone came and hit Bahera on the forehead. He rushed to a clinic for first aid. The next day, he says, he came to know that after he had left the spot, a hawker named Hasan Lalu (a tea vendor who is in jail) threw a burning mashaal inside the coach, which then caught fire. According to Bahera, he visited Maulvi Hussain Umarji during the next few days. On his first visit, Umarji told him he was paying Rs 1,500 to all those who had been arrested; he did not pay Bahera though. On his second visit, Umarji told him to escape. Having done so, Bahera says he sold the ring he had robbed a few months later to a jeweller in Anand for Rs 2,000.

Jabir Binyamin Bahera has since retracted his statement.

STITCHED UP: CONSPIRACY AND CONSPIRATORS
Armed with Bahera’s confession, the police now claimed to know the main conspirators (Maulvi Umarji, Bilal Haji, Farukh Bhana, Razzak Kurkur and Salim Paanwala); where the conspirators had gathered on the eve of the incident (at Kurkur’s shop); where the petrol had been bought from (Hakamia Pump); and where the petrol was stored (at Kurkur’s house, behind his shop). But most importantly, the police had now linked the conspiracy to Godhra’s most significant Muslim religious figure — Maulvi Umarji.

Umarji is one of the most respected maulvis of Godhra. During the communal riots in 1965, 1969, 1980 and 1989, Umarji had been a member of the district administration’s peace committees. After the Sabarmati Express incident, he ran a relief camp for months in Godhra. He had also taken delegations to meet dignitaries like Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister HD Devegowda, and then Defence Minister George Fernandes during their visits to Godhra after the incident. On April 4, 2002, when the then Prime Minister AB Vajpayee visited Godhra, accompanied by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Umarji gave him a memorandum. However, he snubbed Modi by refusing to hand him a copy of the memorandum.

With Kalota, the municipal council president, vice president and a couple of Muslim corporators and advocates already in jail, the Muslim political leadership in Godhra was already in the dock. With Umarji named a prime conspirator, the entire Muslim community of Godhra was indicted. The police were now in a position to claim that the Sabarmati Express incident was not an act of spontaneous rioting but a cold-blooded, premeditated act of communal violence, with respectable Muslims from Godhra at the centre of the conspiracy.

FRESH FUEL: FAKE WITNESSES PRODUCED TO PROVE THE SOURCE OF THE PETROL
Prabhatsingh Patel and Ranjitsingh Patel were two salesmen employed at Hakamia Pump at the time of the Godhra incident. On April 10, 2002, just a month after the incident, the two told the police that they had been at work since 6 pm on February 26, 2002, till 9 am on February 27, 2002, and had not sold loose petrol during that period.

On February 23, 2003, the police approached the two again. In a disturbing turnaround, both now claimed they had sold 140 litres of petrol to six Muslims, including Kurkur and Paanwala. They said Paanwala, Bahera, Siraj Lala, Salim Zarda and Shaukat Babu had come in a parrot-coloured tempo to the pump while Kurkur went ahead on an M-80 scooter.

THE SEESAW TRAIL: CONFESSIONS, CHARGESHEETS, RETRACTIONS
Armed with Bahera’s confession and the statements of the two petrol pump salesmen, the police filed a third supplementary chargesheet on April 16, 2003.

Later, they also obtained confessions from six other accused — Shaukat Bhano, Salim Zarda, Irfan Patalia, Mehboob Latika, Shaukat Bibina and Shakir Babu (all Muslim hawkers). These confessions were recorded between 2003 and 2006 but never included in any of the 13 subsequent chargesheets. All six hawkers have since retracted their confessions.

The police also took a statement from Sikandar Mohammad Siddik, a Muslim boy living with his family along the tracks at the time of the Godhra incident. Siddik has since migrated to Surat.

the accused and the sequence of events provided in Bahera’s confession. It also claims that Umarji had told him he was paying Rs 1,500 to those who had set the train on fire. However, Siddik also named another religious figure hitherto not mentioned by anyone. According to him, Maulvi Yakub Punjabi had been shouting provocative slogans from the roof of a masjid when the train halted near Cabin A. Surprisingly, the police have not made Yakub Punjabi an accused.

TEHELKA found that Punjabi was not in the country at the time of the Godhra incident, a fact attested by his passport and visa. After Siddik’s statement, the police had apparently picked up Yakub Punjabi, but realising the blunder they released him immediately.

THE CRUCIAL QUESTIONS: THE GAPING HOLES IN THE NANAVATI COMMISSION REPORT
The scheduled time of arrival of the Sabarmati Express taking karsevaks to Ayodhya was midnight, and the scheduled time for the one returning from Ayodhya was 2.55 am. A similar train carrying karsevaks to Ayodhya had reached Godhra in the early hours of February 26, just a day before the fateful incident. Why didn’t the conspirators attack this train — midnight being a time more suited to a crime of this magnitude than 8 am? Even if we concede that the conspirators were illogical and hell bent on burning only the returning Sabarmati Express, why would they specifically target coach S-6, deciding to do so one night in advance?

The Nanavati Commission has offered a lame explanation to these questions by stating that, ‘Other possibilities cannot make doubtful what really has happened. Why the conspirators chose the Sabarmati Express train coming from Ayodhya and why coach S-6 thereof was made the target, was obviously the result of many factors, including what was desired by and suitable to the conspirators. Unless the conspirators who took that decision disclose the real reason, it would be a matter of drawing an inference from the surrounding facts and circumstances.’

If the conspirators were really bent on attacking the Sabarmati Express on February 27, what was the original plan, considering the train was scheduled to arrive at 2:55 am?

Since the police claim that the plan to burn coach S-6 was already in place on the evening of February 26, and its execution was left to a handful of hawkers, what would the so-called conspirators have done if the karsevaks had not beaten up hawkers on the platform? How would the hawkers have gathered a mob in the absence of a fight? Did the execution of the conspiracy hinge on the provocative behaviour of the karsevaks? Can a conspiracy be made on the basis of events which are not in anyone’s control?

According to the police, Jabir Binyamin Bahera was one of the key people, deputed to buy and store the petrol, take it to Cabin A, and then enter coach S-6 and pour petrol along the floor. Why then was he roped in only at the last minute to execute the conspiracy?

The police claim that Ajay Baria was forcibly taken along by the Muslim hawkers, first to collect petrol from Razzak Kurkur’s house, then to Cabin A where they finally set the coach on fire. Since there were already several Muslim hawkers involved — Baria has named nine — why did they need him? Why would Muslim conspirators take a Hindu tea vendor, against his wishes, to execute their plans?

Why was Maulvi Umarji only interested in burning coach S-6, as the police claim, when the entire train was full of karsevaks?

Can a vestibule, whose average thickness is 6 inches, be cut with a pair of scissors?

The commission did not go into these questions.

rs entered the coach after cutting the vestibule, how is it that no S-6 survivor — karsevak or ordinary passenger — saw them?

The commission’s explanation is that since there was a lot of smoke inside S-6, a full version of events is not available with eyewitnesses.

The Sabarmati Express was originally scheduled to arrive at Godhra station at 2.55 am. Did Pathak, Mulchandani and the other BJP members plan to greet the VHP leaders and karsevaks with tea and biscuits at that unlikely hour, or did they make their plan only after they came to know that the train was running late? Further, Pathak, Mulchandani and the others claim to have been present at the station from 6:30 am till the train was set on fire. Yet, none of them mention the altercation between the karsevaks and the Muslim vendors or the attempted abduction of the Muslim girl. How is it that such major incidents escaped their notice?

More perplexing, Pathak, Mulchandani and the others must have been very close to the mob to be able to identify the people in it as they have done. If the mob was armed as they have claimed, why did it spare Pathak and the rest, when the same mob was not forgiving of the armyman or the others whom they attacked and injured after they escaped from S-6?

Between them, Pathak, Mulchandani and the seven other BJP men have identified 41 Muslims. Yet, in all their lists, not one name overlaps. All these nine so-called witnesses say they were standing together at the station, and all nine claim to have identified culprits while standing at the same spot — behind cabin A — yet all saw different people. Was this a meticulous division of labour or sheer coincidence?

The commission is silent on the testimonies of Murli Mulchandani, Kakul Pathak and the seven other BJP men.

THE TRUTH EXPOSED: TEHELKA’S PAINSTAKING INVESTIGATION OVER SIX MONTHS DEMOLISHES THE POLICE CASE
Over a period of six months, from May 2007, TEHELKA’s undercover reporter infiltrated the VHP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP circles deep inside Gujarat. Most of the time, the reporter posed as an RSS man writing a book on Hindutva. At other times, he posed as a Delhi University research scholar sympathetic to the RSS, writing a thesis on the resurgence of Hindutva in Gujarat. After meeting several Sangh Parivar and BJP leaders in Ahmedabad, the reporter was introduced by a BJP leader in charge of Panchmahal district (Godhra falls in Panchmahal) to Kakul Pathak, one of the nine BJP Godhra witnesses. After meeting Pathak twice and tutoring himself on the internal politics of the BJP in Godhra, the reporter made a cold call on Murli Mulchandani, posing as an RSS man travelling across Gujarat to assess the mood of the electorate.

THE TRUTH ABOUT KAKUL PATHAK
The TEHELKA reporter met Kakul Pathak twice, first on May 29, 2007, and the second time on July 17, 2007. In the first meeting, Pathak discussed the state of the BJP in Godhra and his own contribution to the party. He also named a few BJP MLAs and ministers who he said had backed the Hindu rioters post-Godhra.

In the second meeting, Pathak laid bare the horrible truth about how he and the other eight BJP members had colluded with the police to indict innocent Muslims. Contrary to their statements, Pathak said neither he nor the other eight BJP men were on the spot when the coach was set on fire. The truth is, by the time Pathak reached the spot, the mob had dispersed. The truth is that Pathak did not even know that the police had attributed a statement to him and made him a witness, but when he did come to know about it, he backed the police to the hilt. Joining ranks with the police, Pathak identified two people in the police parade who had been named as culprits in his statement. He knew the two were not involved in the crime, but he still damned them as he thought it was his duty towards the ‘Hindu Samaj’. ‘Yeh Hindutva ka kaam hai… jo party bolegi, woh karne ka hai,’ Pathak told TEHELKA. (This is Hindutva work … whatever the party commands, we must do.) Pathak has since stood his ground, except on one count. A man called Ismail Chunga had been named by the police as a culprit in his statement. Pathak later claimed it was Ismail Chungi, not Chunga. He did this to save Chunga, who happened to be his business partner. ‘How can I fix my own partner?’ Pathak says.

In all, Pathak’s statement named six people as culprits. Three are still absconding, one was released on bail within a few months, and two have been in judicial custody for the last three years. The two in custody are advocate Rol Amin Hussain Hathila and Usman Abdulgani Coffeewala, an alleged pickpocket.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MURLI MULCHANDANI
In another shocking disclosure, Murli Mulchandani, currently vice-president of the Godhra Municipal Council, told the TEHELKA reporter he was sleeping at home at the time of the incident. Much like Pathak, though, he readily cooperated with the police and did not bat an eyelid when his name was included among the eyewitnesses.

Mulchandani, in fact, was livid with Dilip Dasadiya for retracting his statement, and upset with Pathak and Raju Darji for making minor changes in the names of two of the accused. He was miffed that despite their indiscipline, the BJP had given party responsibilities to Dasadiya and Darji. He said such instances sometimes made him lose faith in the party, but he would stick to his word since he could not betray Hindutva.

The commission, while basing its findings on the police chargesheet, is surprisingly silent on the testimonies of the nine BJP men who had among them identified as many as 41 accused.

THE TRUTH ABOUT RANJITSINGH PATEL AND PRABHATSINGH PATEL
Ranjitsingh Patel and Prabhatsingh Patel — the petrol pump employees who, in a volte-face, claimed they sold 140 litres petrol to the accused — now live under round-the-clock police vigil. They quit their jobs after their police statements and returned to their village, Saapa Sigwa, about six miles from Godhra. When the TEHELKA reporter tried to meet Prabhatsingh, his family denied him access.

However, TEHELKA was fortunate enough to get to the other witness, Ranjitsingh Patel. When the reporter, posing as a Bajrang Dal man, approached Ranjitsingh on July 16, 2007, the latter was tilling a field and the two policemen who shadow him 24/7 had gone for a tea break. After some initial apprehension, Ranjitsingh told the reporter he was paid Rs 50,000 by Noel Parmar. The importance of this cannot be over-emphasised. One of the prime witnesses, on whom the entire police case rests, confessed that the chief investigating officer had bribed him. He said a similar amount was also paid to his colleague, Prabhatsingh. He also said that Parmar had told him that when the time came to identify the accused in court, he would show the accused to Ranjitsingh in advance and on the sly, so he could remember their faces and pin them down.

COMMISSION TAKES BRIBED PETROL PUMP ATTENDANTS AT FACE VALUE
The Nanavati Commission has relied heavily on the statements made by Ranjitsinh Patel and Prabhatsinh Patel before the Investigating Officer, Deputy SP Noel Parmar, to reach the conclusion that the train fire was the result of premeditated criminal conspiracy. While considering their statements, the commission has also bought the explanation the two offered for why they did not reveal the sale of the petrol in their first statements recorded on April 10, 2002, in which they denied having sold loose petrol between 6 pm of February 26, 2002, and 10 am on February 27, 2002, the time of the shift they were on at the pump. Six months later, before Parmar, the two attendants not only made the sensational claim of having sold 140 liters of loose petrol to the accused, they also claimed that the reason they had said nothing about it before was that they had never been asked about the night of February 26. Now that that evening had been brought into question, they had found it possible to be more forthcoming. This explanation the commission buys, saying in its report, ‘Both these witnesses have explained in their statements why they had earlier told the police that they had not given loose petrol to anyone in a carboy on 26.2.2002.

The same commission refused to accept Sophia Bano Shaikh’s statement about the abduction attempt made on her, despite the fact that she and her family have been consistent in their statements, unlike the two Patels. Worse, one of them is on camera confessing to having been bribed to support the police case.

The commission, though, was quick to requisition the TEHELKA tape on which Ranjitsingh Patel was recorded talking about being paid Rs 50,000 by Parmar for identifying the people he had not sold petrol to, as the accused. Justice Nanavati took no action and made no effort to ascertain the veracity of the tapes and the revelations therein, the revelations which demolished the premise on which the police case rests and on which the commission has based its conclusion that Maulvi Umarji and others hatched a conspiracy to burn the train.

THE TRUTH ABOUT AJAY BARIA
In 2007, TEHELKA tried to reach Ajay Baria, the Hindu tea-vendor-turned-police-witness, but failed to track him down. Kakul Pathak told TEHELKA that Baria lived under the close supervision of Parmar and that the last he had heard of him, Baria was selling tea near Parmar’s office in Vadodara. TEHELKA then decided to meet his mother, who is a dailywager and lives in Godhra. Baria’s mother said her son had become a police witness out of fear. She said he was at home and fast asleep at the time of the incident at the Godhra station. She also said the police did not allow Baria to visit her or come to Godhra too often. Every time Baria came home from Vadodara to visit her, two policemen, she said, accompany him.

THE COMMISSION BUYS BARIA’S LIES
Baria’s mother may not believe the statement he gave to the police, but the Nanavati Commission placed full faith in it. It did not raise the fundamental question as to why Muslim tea vendors, under the leadership of prominent local Muslim figures allegedly involved in a diabolical conspiracy to burn karsevaks alive, would trust a Hindu tea vendor and take him along while executing their plan. This when Baria had no critical or instrumental role to play in the plan other than to witness the entire episode.

On page 168 of the report, the commission observes that ‘conspiracies are ordinarily hatched in secrecy’. Now, in so secret and dangerous a conspiracy as was hatched that February by the cruel and coldblooded Muslims of Godhra, why the Hindu tea vendor Ajay Baria was roped in, needs some explanation.

Khetan currently works with TV Today Network