New Delhi, India – Charges made by Hindu fundamentalists that the fire that killed 59 people in 2002 was set by members of Gujarat’s Muslim minority are completely false according to a federal commission of inquiry. The incident in question occurred on February 27, 2002, at the Godhra railway station. It was followed by an anti-Muslim pogrom led by Hindu nationalist groups that left about a thousand people dead, most of them Muslims.
“[The fire] was not the result of a deliberate attack by anybody and there is no evidence of any conspiracy whatsoever,” commission head Umesh Chandra Banerjee, a retired Supreme Court judge, said in his report. The blaze in the carriage could be “ascribed as an accidental fire”.
He also found that there was no aggressive Muslim mob at the scene. "Only a few onlookers, including some women and children, were present,” he noted.
He found the findings by the previous commission of inquiry set up by then ruling Bharatiya Janata Party administration “unbelievable” to accept. Hindu fundamentalists had alleged that the train’s doors were locked from outside. But if that was true how “could the other 150 passengers have escaped to safety if some people locked the doors [of the coach] from outside?"
Railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav plans to table the report in the Parliament this week.
Hindu leaders reacted angrily to the findings. “There will be tumultuous protest from our leaders as soon as the report is placed [in Parliament],” an anonymous Hindu leader said.
Former Union Law Minister and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said that the commission had no legitimate authority to probe the fire.
“Who is innocent and who is guilty is decided by a court of law. This is not a matter concerning the railway ministry or a railway panel,” he said.