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From the Archives of Communalism Combat Part II Gujarat 2002-2007 Genocide' s Aftermath
13 May 2014 at 12:03
From the Archives of Communalism Combat Part II Gujarat 2002-2007 Genocide' s Aftermath
Teesta Setalvad
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2007/july07/godhra1.html
Deconstructing Godhra
The alleged torching alive of 59 persons in coach number S-6 of the Sabarmati Express returning from
Faizabad (Ayodhya) to Ahmedabad at the Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, became the sordid
justification for unleashing the post-Godhra carnage across Gujarat. The incident was first described by
the
district collector, Jayanti Ravi, to be an accident. But from 7.30
p.m. onwards the same evening, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of
the state, started portraying it as a conspiracy inspired by
Pakistan’s ISI.
On the afternoon of February 27, in parliament,
the then prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee described the
incident as an accident. Weeks later, at the BJP’s national meet
in Goa, he too fell in line, justifying the post-Godhra carnage
with his famous "
agar Godhra na hota to Gujarat na hota"
(If Godhra had not happened Gujarat, too, would not have
happened). The sangh parivar’s Goebbelian propaganda machine
relayed this message of "Muslim aggression" and "Hindu
retaliation" throughout the country and abroad. Riding high on the
carnage, Modi called a snap poll and romped back to power in 2002.
The report of a three member fact-finding team from Delhi, brought out by Sahmat, New Delhi (March 18, 2002),
CC’s
special issue, "Gujarat – Genocide 2002" (March-April 2002),
and most importantly, the report of the Concerned Citizens
Tribunal,
Crime Against Humanity, authored by a panel
headed by former judges of the supreme court, justices VR
Krishna Iyer and PB Sawant (November 2002), were the first efforts at
deconstructing the Godhra lie. The mainstream national media,
which is often faulted for its failure to do a systematic
follow-up on tragedies, kept a keen watch post-Godhra. Two
reports in
The Times of India, the first based on
statements of policemen on the spot, the second on the findings
of the Ahmedabad based Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), also
confirmed the attempts to manipulate Godhra to political advantage.
Since 2002, two significant legal efforts have taken this exercise further.
On
November 21, 2003 the Supreme Court stayed 14 trials in
Gujarat, including the one related to the Godhra burning. This has not
deterred the Gujarat police from continuing a politically
motivated investigation into the incident. But no such further
investigations have been made by the same police into the
post-Godhra massacres, Naroda Gaon and Patiya, Gulberg Society,
Ode and Sardarpura.
Here we bring to
CC’s readers the deconstruction of the Godhra lie, relying on the sources of information mentioned above.
Background
In
1933, a young arsonist named Marinus van der Lubbe from Holland
had been wandering around Berlin for a week, attempting to burn
government buildings. The exact sequence of events will never be known
but Nazi storm troopers, under Nazi leader, Hermann Göring’s
direction, befriended the arsonist and helped him to burn the
Reichstag (German parliament) that night.
The storm
troopers, led by SA leader, Karl Ernst, used the underground
tunnel that connected Göring’s residence with the cellar in the
Reichstag. They entered the building, scattered gasoline and hurried
back through the tunnel to safety. The Reichstag was set on fire
on February 27, 1933.
Following the arrest of the Dutch
arsonist, Adolf Hitler became enraged: "The German people have
been soft too long. Every Communist official must be shot. All
Communist deputies must be hanged this very night. All friends
of the Communists must be locked up."
Leaving the scene of the fire, Hitler went straight to the office of his newspaper, the
Völkischer Beobachter,
to
personally oversee news coverage of the fire. He stayed up all
night with Goebbels to put together a paper full of tales of an
alleged communist plot to violently seize power in Berlin. Over
4,000 communists were killed thereafter.
VHP’s ‘Chalo Ayodhya’
It all began with the VHP’s mobilisation for a programme in Ayodhya, which they called ‘Purnahuti Maha Yagna’.
Three groups from Gujarat, consisting of about 2,000 Ram
bhakts (devotees) each, were to go to Ayodhya for
kar seva. The first group of about 2,200 Ram
sevaks was to leave Ahmedabad on February 22, 2002.
They
left for Ayodhya, as planned, on February 22 and began their
return journey to Ahmedabad by the Sabarmati Express on February
25, 2002.
There is no clear evidence that any person in Gujarat
(except, perhaps, members of the VHP) knew of the specific date
on which
kar sevaks would travel from Ayodhya to Gujarat
i.e. on February 25. Central, state and local intelligence
agencies have in fact deposed before the Nanavati-Shah
Commission stating that they did not have any information about
the
kar sevaks’ travel plans.
CJP
and
CC
have studied the detailed intelligence records submitted before
the commission. While the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB),
Gujarat, had sent several missives warning of communal
mobilisation by
kar sevaks, especially regarding their
travel to Ayodhya from different locations in Gujarat, the absence of
adequate reports from central or Uttar Pradesh intelligence
departments regarding their return journey, and their
belligerent and aggressive behaviour on the return journey, is
significant. The only letter that arrived from central
intelligence about the
kar sevaks’
return was received by the Gujarat SIB a day
after the Godhra tragedy i.e. on February 28, 2002. In the absence of specific information about the
kar sevaks’
return journey, there could have been no conspiracy hatched by
any person to burn coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express on
February 27.
Chief minister sets the agenda
Yet
on February 27, the chief minister made the following press
statement which was widely publicised all over Gujarat: "The
abominable event that has occurred in Godhra does not befit any
civilised society...it is not a communal event but is a one-sided
collective terrorist attack by one community…" He further said
that this was not a simple incident of violence or a communal
event but a "pre-planned incident
".
Who could fit the "international terrorist" label?
They
found a maulana – Maulana Umerji – and booked him a whole year
after the incident had occurred. Who was this "terrorist"? An
old, semi-invalid, respected Muslim leader from the Ghanchi Community
in Godhra who ran a riot relief camp at the Iqbal Primary School
from March 2002 until August 2002. The maulana was a senior and
respected member of his community who had consistently
galvanised resources for national tragedies, including the
Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984, from Godhra’s citizenry.
Arrival of Sabarmati Express at Godhra
At
7.43 a.m. on February 27 the Sabarmati Express from Ayodhya
arrived on platform No 1 at Godhra railway station. The train was
nearly five hours late. In their statements – nearly identical in
content – before the police and later, before the commission,
Sheelaben Virpal, Punamkumari Tiwari, Satishkumar Ravidutt
Mishra, Sadhwiji Minakshi Deviji, a
kar sevak, and
Savitaben Tribhovandas Sadhu, an activist of the VHP, stated that
there had been a quarrel on the platform with some tea vendors.
There was also a reported incident involving the attempted abduction of a Muslim girl by
kar sevaks.
In statements dated February 28 and recorded under Section 161
of the CrPC, Sophia Bano M. Shaikh, a minor, her mother and her
sister all stated that some
kar sevaks had tried to
molest Sophia and pull her into the train. While the FSL report
was filed along with the first charge sheet, the statements by
Sophia Shaikh and her family were initially kept out it.
Sophia
Shaikh also deposed before the commission where she stated: "The
persons wearing saffron bands came down on the platform for tea
and snacks. They took their tea and snacks and at that time one
bearded person was there whom the persons wearing the saffron bands
started beating for some reason. Seeing this, we got scared and we
went away a little far. In the meantime one person wearing
saffron band came and he covered my mouth and started dragging
me towards the station.
"As I started shouting, he released me. As
this incident happened, I went inside the platform, near the
ticket counter. Along with me, my mother and sister also went
inside. We people had become very scared because of which we
postponed the idea of going to Vadodara and decided to go back
to my auntie."
There are many similar evidences to establish that there was indeed a scuffle between some
kar sevaks and the tea vendor on the platform of Godhra station, and that the
kar sevaks had prevented a Muslim tea vendor from serving tea inside coach S-6 and even pushed him out of the train.
A
railway guard, Pachuram Verma, has deposed before the
commission stating that the chain was pulled soon after the train had
left Godhra station and was only a short distance from it, and
that the driver had informed him of this fact.
His
statement says: "At 8.00 a.m., the train had started and at this
time persons wearing saffron head and neck bands came running
and boarded the train. I came to know that the chain pulling had
happened because these
kar sevaks had not been able to get up. I did not take any action since there was a big crowd of
kar sevaks and I could not know who had specifically pulled the chain."
It is therefore quite clear that the chain was first pulled from within the train itself. Some of the
kar sevaks who
had got off the train were left behind on the platform when the
train started at 7.48 a.m. In all probability, therefore, these
were the
kar sevaks involved in the scuffle with the tea vendor, because of which they did not notice that the train had started.
The conflict after the first chain pulling
After
the chain was first pulled, the engine stopped just beyond the
platform with coach S-6 coming to a halt near the parcel office.
By this time, due to the altercation at the station and especially
as news had spread that a Muslim girl had been abducted by
kar sevaks, a crowd of local Muslims had gathered behind the parcel office.
Another
eyewitness, a Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable named
Mohan Jagdish Yadav has deposed before the commission: "We saw
stone throwing between the train passengers and the outside people.
Some passengers were shouting slogans of
Jai Shri Ram. We
told those passengers to go and sit in the train and raising our
sticks we told the outsiders to go away and chased them away.
The passengers who were shouting and throwing stones were
passengers of two coaches. The people who were throwing stones
from Signal Falia were doing so from behind the wall and some of
them were trying to jump across the wall to enter the station."
The train then started moving but stopped again, coming to a halt near the ‘A’ cabin.
How did the train stop near the ‘A’ cabin?
Six
months after the incident, the Gujarat government extracted two
confessions, from Anwar Kalandar and another Muslim boy. They
‘confessed’ that they had stopped the train by boarding the running
train and rotating the ‘alarm chain disc’ from outside.
Kalandar
subsequently withdrew his confession, claiming it was extracted
under torture. However, what is even more significant is the
information that since 1995 the railways have modified the design of
the alarm chain pulling system (ACP) to curb its misuse. (To
escape a check, ticketless passengers jumped off/on the train by
rotating the disc from outside to stop the train beyond platform
limits.) This fact obviously escaped the Gujarat police’s
attention while they were extracting a confession from Kalandar.
On
an enquiry made of the railway authorities by the JSM during
commission proceedings it was learnt that all 18 coaches of the
Sabarmati Express possessed the modified alarm chain system. Therefore
the train’s vacuum brakes could not have been activated by
turning the alarm disc from outside. The ACP can only be
operated from inside the coaches and corrected from outside.
From
categorical statements made by both the guard and the assistant
driver of the train it is clear that on that day they had
corrected the ACPs in four coaches of the Sabarmati Express. Railway
Guard Verma has deposed that he along with assistant driver,
Mukesh Pachhori, had corrected the chain pulling of four coaches
(Nos. 83101, 5343, 91263 and 88238) when the
kar sevaks
first pulled the chain. From this view of the matter, the ACP of
a fifth coach (No. 90238), noticed by another railway official,
Harimohan Mina, whose statement has been recorded, was not
corrected.
To correct a chain pulling, railway employees have to
physically rotate the alarm disc to reset the clappet valve. In
this case, while the first chain pulling was done from five
coaches, the ACP was only put right in four coaches thereby
leaving one clappet valve uncorrected. This was the reason why
the driver dragged the train up to the ‘A’ cabin but could not
go further.
In his deposition, Rajendraprasad Misrilal Mina, the
assistant stationmaster (ASM), an eyewitness, stated: "On
February 27, 2002 I was on duty as assistant stationmaster at
`A’ cabin of Godhra railway station from 12 at night to morning
up to 8.00 a.m. Sabarmati Express train arrived at Godhra
railway station at 7.43 a.m. Since the line was clear, departure
signal was given at 7.45 a.m. The train started at 7.48 a.m.
After some time the train stopped by blowing the whistle. I
could see from the cabin that the train had stopped. At that time no
crowd was seen between ‘A’ cabin and the train.
"When the
train started again I looked at the clock in the cabin and the
time was 7.55 a.m. When the train reached near the cabin I was
standing near window of the cabin for showing ‘alright’ signal. When
the train arrived at ‘A’ cabin, the engine was blowing the whistle
indicating chain pulling. The period between the restarting of
the train and its arrival at ‘A’ cabin would have been around
five to six minutes. I did not see any crowd at that time. It
was about 8 o’clock when the train had stopped.
"When the
train was moving with slow speed I had seen a crowd running
towards and along with the train. When I got down from the
cabin, at that time some people from the crowd had come near the cabin.
Few persons from the mob were throwing stones on the train...
"The
mob did not arrive together but 10 to 15 persons were coming
and gathering... There were women and children also in the mob. I
did not see personally as to who set the fire and how."
What did the district superintendent of police, Raju Bishankumar Bhargav, see inside coach S-6?
Bhargav’s
deposition before the commission is very important so as to
comprehend the severity of the fire and the speed with which it
spread. He said that he had reached the burning coach at about
8.30 a.m. i.e. barely 15-17 minutes after the fire began.
Bhargav
said he saw people with blackened faces and with some burn
injuries to the head, coming out of the coach. He saw 10 or 12
passengers coming out of the coach; they were coming out of the coach
door on the Godhra town side. The injuries that he noticed were
on the upper part of passengers’ bodies. He did not notice any
injuries below the waist area.
Bhargav said that he did not
see any flames rising in the part of the coach that he could
see from the doorway. "I had seen only smoke in that area...
I
had not noticed any flames on the floor of the area between the
two doors. I had also not smelt any inflammable fuel like
petrol, kerosene, diesel, etc."
The Gujarat government’s version of the cause of the fire
It
is in the second charge sheet filed on September 20, 2002, that
(i) the burning from inside story evolves into a conspiracy
carried out by a core group; (ii) the spontaneous collection of a mob on
hearing that a girl was pulled into the train is alleged; (iii)
Chain pulling is said to have been done by Anwar Kalandar who
is not made an accused because it is tacitly accepted that he
did this to protect the girl. The first charge sheet, which
details the altercations between the
kar sevaks and the vendors, has no mention of any conspiracy.
The
fourth charge sheet added the terrorist conspiracy angle.
Thereafter, up to the present 16th supplementary charge sheet, the
police version has not changed qualitatively. The case made out in
the second and third charge sheets was "refined" by adding a
"conspiracy" story. According to the police, the conspiracy was
hatched by Razak Kurkure, Salim Panwala, Haji Bilal and a few
others in room No. 8 of the Aman Guest House (owned by Razak
Kurkure) at around 9 p.m. on February 26, 2002.
The alleged
conspiracy included the plan to set fire to the Sabarmati
Express on February 27, 2002. For that purpose, 140 litres of
petrol was allegedly bought from Kalabhai’s petrol pump the previous
night and kept in Kurkure’s house. It is alleged that at around
9.30-10 p.m. on February 26, 2002, Maulana Umerji had directed
that coach S-6 should be set on fire.
The entire charge by
the prosecution (Gujarat government) that coach S-6 was burnt
down in pursuance of a pre-planned conspiracy rests on an FSL
report which mentions that some residual hydrocarbons were found
in samples collected from the site and that petrol was found in two
carboys.
The reliability of the FSL report on samples
collected from the site is highly doubtful. Hundreds of
onlookers and visitors, including the chief minister and other
ministers, had visited the site and also entered coach S-6
before the samples were collected. Suspect material could easily
have been removed from inside the coach. Equally, what the FSL
found inside the coach could well have been planted from outside.
The
FSL report dated March 20, 2002 was accessible to the
investigation officer (IO), KC Bawa, before he filed the first charge
sheet on May 5, 2002. Yet the charge sheet made no specific
allegation about the use of petrol in torching coach S-6. Bawa’s
first charge sheet was quite vague: "At that time the accused
armed with deadly weapons and highly inflammable fluids filled in
cans and shouting slogans, ‘Pakistan
Zindabad’, ‘Hindustan
Murdabad’, burnt down the coach S-6".
The big question is why did the IO refuse to specify the fluid that was allegedly used by the "conspirators"?
It
appears therefore that initially the investigation began in
right earnest. The two petrol pumps near Godhra station were
sealed off by the police on February 27, 2002. The first petrol pump, on
Vejalpur road, was owned by MH & A. Patel while the other
was owned by Asgarali Qurban Hussein (Kalabhai).
On April 9, 2002, seven samples of petrol and diesel were collected from these petrol pumps and
panchnamas
were made. These samples, four samples of diesel marked A, B, E
and F, and three samples of petrol marked C, D (from Kalabhai’s
pump) and H (from MH & A. Patel’s pump), were sent for
forensic examination to find out whether the petrol or diesel
from these pumps had been used to burn coach S-6.
In his report
dated April 26, 2002, DB Talati, assistant director, FSL, said
that samples A, B, E and F contained diesel while C, D and H
contained petrol. He added however that he could not give a clear
opinion on whether the petrol detected in some samples in and around
coach S-6 as per the FSL report dated March 20, 2002 and the
petrol detected in samples C, D and H came from the same source.
The
fatal blow to the prosecution’s "petrol theory" was delivered
by two employees of Kalabhai’s petrol pump, Prabhatsinh G. Patel
and Ranjitsinh J. Patel. In their statements recorded on April 10,
2002, the two men flatly denied having sold any loose petrol to
anybody, adding that they did not sell loose petrol from their
pump. Thus the police had no source whence they could allege the
accused had procured the petrol. Strangely, the police did not
question any employees of the petrol pump owned by MH & A.
Patel; they only questioned its owners.
The charge sheet filed by
KC Bawa on May 22, 2002 therefore "created" evidence to
establish that coach S-6 was burnt from outside using some
inflammable liquid. Bawa "recorded" the statements of nine
important eyewitnesses between February 27 and March 15, 2002,
namely, Janaklal K. Dave, Rajeshbhai V. Darji, Nitinkumar Harprasad
Pathak, Dilipbhai U. Dasariya, Muralidhar R. Mulchandani
(reportedly, the current vice-president of Godhra Nagarpalika),
Dipakbhai M. Soni, Harsukhlal T. Advani, Chandrashekhar N.
Sonaiya and Manoj H. Advani.
All nine of these eyewitnesses, who
declared themselves to be active members of the VHP, made
identical statements to the effect that they had gone to Godhra
station on the morning of February 27 to meet the
kar sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya and offer them tea and breakfast.
They
gave the following identical statements: "…the train was
standing near ‘A’ cabin; at that time, men, women and children
numbering around 900-1,000 persons from Signal Falia started running
towards the stationary train while howling and shouting; because of
this me and other local activists ran towards where the train
was standing and reached ‘A’ cabin and saw that people from
Signal Falia came running there with weapons like
dhariya,
sword, iron pipes and sticks. Others started heavily stoning
the train. These people were shouting slogans like "
Sale Hinduonko kaat daalo, Mandir banane jaate hai, kaat daalo"
(Cut up the Hindus; cut up those who have gone to construct a
temple), etc. Five-six persons with carboys in their hands were
sprinkling the fluid on one coach and they set it on fire and we
kept standing at the side of ‘A’ cabin.
"In this mob, I
saw from the village of Godhra, R. Amin Hussein Hathila..." In
their respective statements the nine eyewitnesses named around
four Muslims each. The 36 Muslims thus named by these
eyewitnesses were arrested for burning down the coach from outside.
Those arrested included Haji Bilal and Mohammad Hussein Kalota
(the then president of the Godhra Nagarpalika). Not one of these
nine eyewitnesses, who claimed to be standing beside the ‘A’
cabin, said a word about Jabir Binyamin Behra and others
arriving in a tempo with seven or eight carboys of petrol,
climbing into coach S-6 by cutting through the vestibule and so
on.
After making out a case that coach S-6 was burnt from
outside, Bawa started discovering any number of carboys containing
traces of kerosene from around the ‘A’ cabin. All this to build
up the case that the fluid used to burn coach S-6 was kerosene.
Between March 29 and April 5 three carboys were allegedly
recovered from three of the accused, Haji Bilal, Abdul Majid
Dhantiya and Kasim Biryani.
Since Bilal was considered to be the
main conspirator at the time, along with Kalota, the kerosene
theory was accepted. In his report dated April 26, 2002, DB
Talati said he had found traces of kerosene in the three carboys
that were sent to him for examination! The kerosene theory
prevailed until the beginning of July 2002. From then on the new
investigation officer, Noel Parmar, had more refined ideas and
fuel in mind.
Even the prosecution’s star "eyewitness", Ajaykumar
Kanubhai Bariya, who for the first time narrated the absurd
story of the accused entering coach S-6 by cutting through the
vestibule between coaches S-6 and S-7, did not allege that
petrol was used to burn coach S-6 in his statement on July 9,
2002. This is what Bariya said, "…after some time I saw Rafique
Bhatuk come with the carbo and give it to Irfan Bhopa and he
told me, ‘Put this carbo in the rickshaw’. I kept that carbo in the
rickshaw as I was very scared. The smell like kerosene was coming
out from the carbo…"
Switch over
The
primary motivation to introduce "petrol" as the ostensible fuel
used by the alleged conspirators along with the theory that
coach S-6 had been set alight from inside was the May 2002 report by
Dr MS Dahiya, director of the FSL, Ahmedabad. Dahiya opined that
coach S-6 could not have been burnt from outside. His report also
said that it would take 60 litres of petrol poured inside the
coach to burn the same. Dahiya’s report apparently did not reach
Bawa in time for him to realise that his theory that the coach
was burnt from outside using kerosene would contradict a report
based on scientific analysis!
An enormous amount of material (370
kilos of burnt out remains) from inside coach S-6 was once again
collected on May 1, 2002 and sent for forensic examination. The
FSL report No. 2002/c/594 dated May 17, 2002 did not however
find any trace of petrol in the residues from inside the coach.
One yellow carboy showed some traces of petrol. But this carboy
does not figure in the subsequent story.
The entire "petrol"
theory hinges on Jabir Binyamin Behra’s "confession" dated
February 5, 2003. According to this "confession", at about 9
p.m. on February 26, 2002, Razak Kurkure asked Behra to
accompany him to fetch petrol from Kalabhai’s petrol pump. Behra
and a few others, with seven 20-litre carboys, went there in a tempo.
After the carboys were filled up, they were brought back and
kept in Kurkure’s room located behind Aman Guest House. This
petrol was then used to set fire to coach S-6 the next day.
Behra’s
story is "corroborated" by the statements of two employees at
Kalabhai’s petrol pump, Prabhatsinh Patel and Ranjitsinh Patel,
who allegedly sold the petrol to Razak Kurkure. These were the same
men who in April 2002 had already given a statement to the police
categorically denying that any such sale of petrol had taken
place. Further statements by both these men were recorded on
February 23, March 11 and March 12, 2003.
In these
statements, both of them alleged that at about 10 p.m. on
February 26, 2002, Kurkure rode up on his M-80 (two-wheeler)
alongside a
popti (green) coloured tempo. After Salim Panwala
had paid for 140 litres of petrol, Ranjitsinh filled up seven
carboys with 140 litres of petrol.
The two Patels also
stated that although they had given statements to the police
earlier, on April 10, 2002, since the police had not asked them
whether anybody had bought loose petrol from their pump on
February 26, 2002, they had not disclosed these facts at the time.
Since the police had only asked them about petrol being
purchased by the accused on February 27, they had denied the
same a year ago! This was why they were now disclosing the facts
before the magistrate, a year later.
Shockingly, the April 10,
2002 statements by Prabhatsinh and Ranjitsinh Patel were only
produced with the supplementary charge sheet dated April 16,
2003. These were the statements that the two men had given the
day after the police had collected petrol samples from
Kalabhai’s petrol pump on April 9, 2002.
Prior to the charge sheet
of April 16, 2003, the two statements recorded on April 10,
2002 were not produced before the court along with earlier
charge sheets. In other words, they were suppressed for over a
year.
Apart from Jabir Binyamin Behra and the two employees from
Kalabhai’s petrol pump, another person, Salim Zarda, who had also
allegedly accompanied Razak Kurkure to Kalabhai’s petrol pump
on February 26, 2002, also ‘admitted’ that the tempo was
carrying seven or eight black 20-litre carboys in the tempo and
that these were filled up with petrol at Kalabhai’s pump, and so
on. The very petrol pump which, in fact, the police had sealed
off for a fairly long period of time after the train fire was
suddenly brought in as the source of a core group plan a whole
year later.
So one year after the incident, the kerosene theory
was suddenly abandoned in favour of petrol as the inflammatory
fuel used. But the problem lies precisely in this double switch
over: from kerosene to petrol, and from the earlier claim that
the coach was burnt from outside to the new theory that the
coach was set fire to from inside. The contradictions are so
glaring, they make the investigation a complete charade. Truth,
of course, is the biggest victim.
It appears that when there was
little evidence to support the prosecution’s case, a statement
by Jabir Behra was recorded (which was also done in violation of
the law) after which Prabhatsinh and Ranjitsinh Patel were
allegedly forcibly detained and their confessional statements
recorded under confinement. Ahmed Kalota, the uncle of accused No. 42,
Mohammad Hussein Kalota, submitted a written application to the
additional sessions judge, Godhra, expressing his apprehensions
about the "kidnapping" of Prabhatsinh and Ranjitsinh Patel and
their illegal confessions being recorded. At the time, the press
and the electronic media had reported extensively on the
matter.
Another significant point is that the carboys containing
traces of petrol were not found near coach S-6 but some distance
away. They were found at a distant location adjacent to a
Muslim-owned garage that was burnt down by
kar sevaks at around 11 a.m. on the same day (February 27, 2002) as a reaction to the burning of coach S-6.
Retractions
Jabir
Binyamin Behra retracted his confession before the POTA court
on July 28, 2003 and the retraction was recorded. He complained
that the confession was extracted forcibly and that his relatives were
threatened. He reiterated this before the Supreme Court as well.
Behra also submitted an affidavit to the Nanavati-Shah
Commission dated January 19, 2005, detailing the torture and
coercion used to extract his confession. His confession should
therefore be treated as wholly involuntary and cannot be relied
upon.
Salim Zarda, too, submitted an application to the POTA
court complaining about the torture and coercion used to extract his
confession and retracted the same.
Similarly, Saukat
Farouque Pataliya retracted his confessional statement before
the POTA court, complaining that he was made to sign a blank
confession sheet, that he had been lured and induced and that
the police had even threatened to beat up his wife. Saukat Pataliya
has also filed an affidavit before the commission.
Mohammad
Sakir’s confession has not been produced before the court by the
police, and apparently he too has retracted his statement. As
for the statements made by persons who are not accused in the
crime, such as Ajay Bariya, Prabhatsinh Patel or Ranjitsinh Patel, the
commission cannot rely on such statements unless they are proved
and the deponents are cross-examined in a rigorous manner
before an appropriate forum.
As far as Anwar Kalandar is
concerned, he has appeared before the commission to make a
deposition. Although the police tried to prevent him from doing
so, with the commission’s permission his affidavit was placed on
record dated April 7, 2005.
Since the prosecution did not choose
to cross-examine Kalandar it is presumed that the contents of
his affidavit before the commission have been admitted by the
prosecution. In his affidavit, Kalandar describes in detail the
inhuman torture and the threats (of being killed in an
encounter) that he was subjected to by the police in order to
extract confessional statements from him. He has categorically denied
the facts recorded in these statements.
Shockingly, Sikandar, a witness whose statement was produced as evidence
by the police,
is also listed as an absconding accused, right from the first charge sheet onwards.
The
moot question now is whether the commission, which is merely a
fact-finding and recommendatory body, will have the jurisdiction
to decide whether the confessions and statements are voluntary or
otherwise before they can be used or be considered reliable. As the
matter stands, a competent court (trial court) has yet to decide
on the issue and therefore the commission cannot, under law,
rely upon these statements/confessions to arrive at any
conclusions.
Whose conspiracy?
Modi
had obviously decided on the motives and identity of those who
had set coach S-6 on fire by the evening of February 27, 2002
itself. The investigators in the Godhra arson case are not
investigating the case at all but doing everything they possibly
can to prove the state’s chief executive right!
The
conspiracy theory has been developed without the slightest
application of mind. By using torture, coercion and the
draconian provisions of the POTA law, absurd confessions have been
extracted whereby a person ends up confessing to having done
something that it was impossible to do. As pointed out earlier,
it was impossible to stop the train by rotating the alarm disc
from outside because of the modifications in design. Yet the
investigators forced such a "confession" to support their claim
that Salim Panwala had instigated Muslim hawkers to stop the
train near the ‘A’ cabin as part of a "pre-planned conspiracy".
While
extracting "confessions" from Anwar Kalandar and Iliyas Hussein
Mulla, several other blunders were made. Kalandar is made to
say that the first chain pulling was carried out to enable
kar sevaks
who were left behind on the platform to board the train. After
the train restarted at 7.48 a.m. Salim came running up from the
direction of the parcel office and urged Kalandar to stop the
train because a Muslim girl was being abducted.
Kalandar also "confesses" that Iliyas Hussein Mulla and Hussein Suleman also came running up with Salim to the
pani ni parab
(water distribution outlet) where Kalandar was standing and due to
Salim’s urging the three of them jumped onto three different
compartments of the Sabarmati Express. Kalandar does not say that
Salim had told him to stop the train at the ‘A’ cabin!
In
his statement dated August 2, 2002, Iliyas Hussein Mulla states
that he was selling his wares on coach S-9 of the Sabarmati
Express when it first arrived at the station. He further stated that at
that time, before the chain was first pulled, Salim Panwala was
standing near the bookstall on platform No. 1. He states that
it was Salim who told him to jump into the S-9 coach and pull
the chain when the coach approached the parcel office (not at the
‘A’ cabin).
He adds that he did pull the chain when the train
approached the parcel office and then ran out of the station, went
to Signal Falia and waited near the Aman Guest House. He did
not know where Saukat and Hussein got off the train.
Iliyas
Mulla goes on to state that during the period when the train
had stopped near the parcel office (i.e. between 7.48 a.m. and
7.55 a.m.), Razak Kurkure came and told him to once again go and pull
the chain to stop the train near the ‘A’ cabin. Iliyas then came
through a breach in the wall in front of Aman Guest House and
jumped onto coach S-4 of the running train. This time around he
only saw Salim from a distance. Thus Iliyas Hussein Mulla wholly
contradicts Anwar Kalandar who said that Salim Panwala had told
Anwar, Iliyas and Hussein together to stop the train.
Interestingly,
Jabir Binyamin Behra states that while stone throwing was going
on from behind the parcel office, he along with some others ran
towards the Aman Guest House where he saw Razak Kurkure and
Salim Panwala coming out though the back door of a room at the guest
house!
He also said that he and some others had been told to
bring the tempo carrying the carboys to a spot behind the ‘A’
cabin and as they were going towards the ‘A’ cabin he spotted
Salim Panwala and Kurkure on a two-wheeler.
Thus whereas
Kalandar and Iliyas Mulla say they saw Salim Panwala at the
station even up to 7.55 a.m. i.e. until the train started after
the chain pulling, Jabir places Salim inside the Aman Guest House
during the stone throwing period and thereafter. The main executor of
the conspiracy, Salim Panwala, appears to be omnipresent.
Iliyas,
who boasts of his skills as an expert chain puller, states that
on the second occasion he had jumped onto the footboard of
coach S-4, towards the platform side. He then had to go through a
tear in the canvas between the vestibule of coaches S-4 and S-5
to reach the northern side in order to reach and rotate the alarm
disc, which, he claims, was located only on the northern side.
This chain pulling expert seems unaware that there are two alarm
discs on both sides at one end of every railway coach
manufactured in India.
The most glaring omission in the
prosecution’s tale is however its silence about what the
conspirators’ original plan, was, had the train not been delayed
by several hours. The VHP has alleged that if the train had
arrived at the correct time, the plan was to set fire to the
entire train at Chanchelav, a village about 12 to 14 km from Godhra
(towards Dahod), around midnight. But the Sabarmati Express has no
scheduled halt there. The VHP has so far not disclosed how in
its view the conspirators planned to stop the train at midnight
when its activists had not allowed anyone to even board the
train from Lucknow onwards.
The fact is that if the
kar sevaks
had not pulled the chain to pick up their colleagues who had
been left behind at Godhra station, the Sabarmati Express would
have passed through Godhra without a hitch and saved the nation
one of its greatest tragedies.
While the prosecution’s entire
theory revolves around the allegation that several Muslims,
including Jabir Binyamin Behra, had cut through the vestibule
canvas of coach S-7 to get onto the train, there is absolutely
no proof of such an absurd claim.
It is evident from their
statements that the nine active members of the VHP who were
standing next to the ‘A’ cabin right from the beginning did not
see or make any allegations about anyone climbing onto coach S-7
and cutting through the vestibule canvas. The ASM, Rajendra
Mina, who was in the ‘A’ cabin at the time, also does not make any such
allegation. In fact, his deposition stated that he had not seen
anyone climbing onto the train. If the slashed canvas was the
most vital piece of evidence in their case, why didn’t the
police collect and preserve it? Why was it allowed to be sold as
scrap for a few meagre rupees?
How does the prosecution explain
the statement it recorded from the parcel office clerk on March
1, 2002 to the effect that after the first chain pulling at the
Godhra station passengers in the train were pelting stones at
the people behind the parcel office?
Where are the black plastic
20-litre carboys that were supposedly filled with petrol and
brought on a tempo to a spot behind the ‘A’ cabin and from which
petrol was allegedly poured into the coach? The FSL has found
three carboys containing traces of kerosene and three small
carboys containing traces of petrol. Why didn’t the police find a
single one of these 20-litre carboys? The FSL report clearly
stated that the burnt residue of materials inside the coach did
not contain any residue of a "plastic container".
How will
the prosecution explain the fact that the two small plastic
containers that were found to have petrol in them were found not
near the coach but across the tracks near the Mallas Auto garage which
was burnt down by passengers and
kar sevaks on the
Sabarmati Express around 11 a.m. on February 27, 2002? Two
trucks outside the garage were burnt using petrol. From where did
the passengers get the petrol?
Why did police inspector Barot
from the police control room, Gandhinagar, inform the director
general of police’s office at 9.35 a.m. on February 27, 2002
that
kar sevaks had set fire to three coaches of the
Sabarmati Express train at Godhra and that the number of injured
was not yet known? Barot therefore asks the police to be vigilant.
The burning of coach S-6 – Evidence
This
is a first-hand account by Hariprasad Joshi, a passenger
allotted berth No. 43 on coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express:
"...the smoke had reached the place where I was standing inside the
coach and as I inhaled the smoke that reached there, I got
suffocated and had fallen down on the floor but as the smoke was
less in the lower side, my breathing was restored and I found
relief… As there was a huge rush near berth No. 72 of the coach,
to save my life, I travelled to the opposite side towards seat
No. 1 by crawling on the floor and had reached to right hand side
door. The behind of my jacket near the shoulder and jacket cap
had got burnt due to flames of fire. I had burns on both the ears and
on the face and I had jumped down off the coach from the door
near seat No. 1.
"The moment I jumped out of the coach and
fell on the ground my breathing was restored on getting the
fresh air and it had then struck me that my wife was inside the
coach. Therefore I had walked up to the side near the seat where
myself and my wife were sitting near the window."
Flashover
"Marleau
had become separated from his fellow firefighters when a room
in an apartment building suddenly exploded into flames in what
is commonly called a flashover or backdraught… Capt Marcel Marleau, 47,
died battling a fire in a Montreal apartment building… when he
was caught in a backdraught, or a sudden explosion of flames…"
(Dene Moore,
Maclean’s Magazine, January 26, 2006).
"A
sudden and sustained transition of a growing compartment fire to
a fully developed fire occurs when all of the combustible
materials present reach their auto-ignition temperature.
Flame-over or roll-over can be an indication that flashover is imminent.
It is important to note that ventilation may initially cause
the fire to burn more intensely and as a result more heat energy
may be released into the compartment than can be lost through
the ventilation opening.
"Flashover can occur when a developing
compartment fire produces flames in the thermal layer near the
ceiling. The flames in the thermal layer can roll or dance
across the ceiling as the unburned products of combustion ignite
and burn off more completely. Heat will increase and force
firefighters to the floor. This lowering of the thermal layer is
often accompanied by the sudden lowering of an existing layer of
smoke."
Backdraught
"A
ventilation induced ignition of the gases or combustible
products accumulated in an under-ventilated compartment fire.
With the introduction of ventilation, the accumulation of unburned
particles suddenly ignites and can blast out of the opening used for
ventilation.
Warning signs for backdraught
"Intact
windows can show heavy smoke staining or glass crazing. There
can be smoke issuing from the eaves or pulsing smoke movements
in and out of cracks and openings. Upon opening a door or a
window there may be a sudden inrush or draw of air that may create a
‘twister’ effect in the smoke. Blue flames may be visible in areas
separate from the main fire and heavy smoke exiting a doorway
or a window may roll back into tiny mushroom shapes."
(
Excerpts from "Rapid Fire Progress" by Rob Aldcorn, February 22, 2006; http://www.firefloor.com/RapidFireProgress.htm.)
Conclusions by Jan Sangharsh Manch
The
Gujarat government’s official version regarding the burning of
coach S-6, developed through multiple charge sheets, does not
inspire any confidence since it suffers from innumerable contradictions
obvious from the record itself.
The official theory is as
follows: At about 9 p.m. on February 26, 2002, in the Aman Guest
House, Razak Kurkure, Salim Panwala and a few other Muslims
from Signal Falia had conspired to burn down coach S-6 of the
Sabarmati Express. This was planned at the behest of Maulana
Umerji. At about 10 p.m. that night, 140 litres of petrol was bought
and hidden in Razak Kurkure’s house. After finding out that the
train was running late, the burning of coach S-6 on February 27,
2002, at 8 a.m., was organised in two stages.
A mob of
1,000 was mobilised to stone the train. Under the cover provided
by them, a few boys carrying 140 litres of petrol were sent
into the coach by cutting through the vestibule canvas. Once inside,
they poured out the petrol and set the coach on fire.
The above thesis suffers from the following obvious defects:
Ø Absolutely no indication as to what the original plan was if the train had arrived at the right time.
Ø Absolutely no evidence has been brought on record to show how the conspirators found out that
kar sevaks
were travelling by the Sabarmati Express that would reach Godhra
on February 27, 2002. The police and the intelligence
department have consistently claimed they had no such
information! Besides, the train arrived way past its scheduled
arrival time, four or five hours late.
Ø In the first three
charge sheets prepared by two separate IOs, there are no
allegations at all regarding the purchase of 140 litres of petrol from
Kalabhai’s pump.
Ø On the contrary, in their statement
before the police on April 10, 2002, the two employees at the
petrol pump (Prabhatsinh Patel and Ranjitsinh Patel) had not
mentioned any sale of large quantities of petrol on February 26,
2002. However, a year later, in March 2003, they were brought
before a magistrate to make such allegations.
Ø There is evidence on record to show that it was
kar sevaks who had pulled the chain and stopped the train at Godhra station, and not Muslims.
Ø
The FSL has not found any petrol hydrocarbons among the 500 kilos or
so of burnt materials found inside the coach. And no "black
carboys" (in which 140 litres of petrol was ostensibly carried)
were found anywhere near the compartment, either inside or
outside.
Ø The FSL did not find any traces of any carboy
(plastic) inside the coach. Where did the carboys in which the
140 litres of petrol was allegedly carried vanish?
Ø If 140
litres of petrol had actually been poured inside a coach and set on
fire, this would have created a massive explosion, especially
because of the confined space in which the ignition occurred.
Ø
If such a fire had in fact occurred, would a single passenger have
come out alive? Over 70 passengers of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati
Express, with superficial injuries above the knee, survived the
fire. Can such a pattern of burning of injured passengers be
explained by fluid induced burning which would have a much
greater impact?
Ø The burning of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati
Express on February 27, 2002 was not the result of any
pre-planned conspiracy by Muslims. It was not due to petrol or
inflammable fluid that coach S-6 burnt down but due to the flash
fire that followed the initial ignition. The luggage caught fire
thereafter and burnt the coach at a slower rate.
Ø The
commission should order a fresh investigation by a body of experts who
have a special knowledge of fire in enclosed spaces.
Ø The investigation officer should be replaced immediately.
