Justice Banerjee’s Godhra report confirms Hardnews scoop

New Delhi: Justice U C Banerjee’s final verdict on Godhra train incident on February 27, 2002 that it was an “accident” confirms the scoop of Hardnews magazine (February 2004).

When we carried a report based on our investigation the BJP led coalition government was still in power, and there were no takers for our story. We in Hardnews were convinced that the Godhra tragedy required a deeper and unbiased investigation to solve a mysterious incident that permanently blighted India’s secular credentials. We in Hardnews feel that the happenings after the train tragedy need to be probed similarly to unravel the contours of the grand conspiracy behind the pogrom. The investigative team of Hardnews hopes reveal the real identity of those planned this genocide.

For the benefit of those who did not get to read the February 2004 (www.hardnewsmedia.com/feb2004/investigation.php) scoop we are patching it below.

Godhra Fire - an Accident ?

Sanjay Kapoor Delhi

It has been two years now since the Godhra train incident and its violent aftermath blew up the secular pretensions of our country. On February 27, 2002, 58 men, women and children traveling in the S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express were singed to death in a mysterious fire. The minority community living alongside the railway track, allegedly trained and bankrolled by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), was blamed for this ghoulish incident. A vicious backlash against the minorities, largely sponsored by the state government, made the Muslims refugees in their own country. The nightmare of Gujarat still haunts the secular psyche of this country, but we still have no definite proof about how the incident took place.

The Justice Nanavati Commission that is looking into the Godhra tragedy has not been able to complete its report on the incident. However, painstaking investigation by a group of public-spirited individuals working under the rubric of Jan Sangharsh Manch, Ahmedabad, suggests that the Godhra fire could be an accident caused by highly inflammable rubberised vestibules. Hardnews received corroboration for this theory from the sudden rash of train fires in Delhi and other parts of the country in the last couple of years. Authorities are clueless about why these fires are taking place. A close inspection of the pictures of the burnt coaches of Godhra and the other fires show that there is amazing similarity in the destruction. Eyewitness accounts of these tragic fires are also not very dissimilar. In all of them there are suggestions that the fire may have started from near the vestibule after which it engulfed the entire train.