Justice U C Banerjee's Interim Report has totally demolished the theory, first propagated by the Sangh Parivar and then by the Narendra Modi government of Gujarat and subsequently adopted by the State Special Prosecutor in the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) case, that Muslim terrorists instigated and supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had set fire to the ill-fated S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. The Gujarat government having pre-determined the cause of the fire, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the state government inexorably concocted one falsehood after another and built up a complete scenario based on the uncorroborated statement of a criminal in police custody. It detained nearly 200 Muslims in Godhra, including some well-known and respected citizens, charged them under POTA and prosecuted them before a special court. The prosecution is going on. Justice Banerjee has with his legal acumen and common sense brought out the illogicality and even absurdity of the case concocted and built up, by the Gujarat Police, with the support of the Railway Ministry — was then headed by Nitish Kumar of the Samata Party, now merged with the Janata Dal (United).

Yet three years later, the public does not even know the exact number of occupants of the ill-fated coach, the names of the unfortunate who lost their lives or of the fortunate who saved themselves by crawling to the exits and jumping out of the coach while dense clouds of smoke were spreading. Although it was and has been widely and repeatedly propagated that all the 58 who lost their lives were the kar sevaks returning from a "pilgrimage" to Ayodhya, it is obvious from news reports that all of them were not kar sevaks. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which had given the call to kar sevaks to reach Ayodhya and also a subsequent call for state-wide protest bandh in their name has not yet published a list of those sevaks(and their family members, as some of them apparently did not travel alone) who were burnt to death or of those who were injured.

On that fateful day, coach S-6, like the rest of the train, was overcrowded with kar sevaks, most of whom were travelling, perhaps without tickets and certainly without reservation. These kar sevaks, armed with trishuls (tridents) and acting as an organized group had intruded into practically all coaches and forced out the authorised passengers who took shelter in other coaches or shared their berths with the intruders. In coach S-6, the total number of occupants could not have exceeded double its normal capacity of 72, say, 150. This more or less matches with the total number of persons who are reported to have saved themselves plus those who were brought out dead or injured. But the actual break up of the dead, the injured and the unscathed and between passengers and kar sevaks is not yet known. Obviously the fire, whatever the origin, did not burn the kar sevaks selectively, but everyone and everything in its way.

Another fact is of great importance. Why was only one coach set on fire? If a hostile group at Godhra had planned to retaliate against marauding kar sevaks, why pick up S-6? Why target only S-6 for stoning? Especially when the train was chock-a-bloc with kar sevaks.

But, in the face of a human tragedy of immense proportion, these categorisations are not important. What is important is the cause of the fire. And this question has remained unanswered. Justice Banerjee is convinced that there was no conspiracy by the Godhra Muslims and that the fire was an accident. Perhaps it was caused by a cooking stove which caught fire, perhaps a burning cigarette butt or a lighted match-stick which was carelessly thrown. But such theorisation is simply not credible because in an overcrowded coach, there was no space for cooking and a smoking cigarette butt or match stick does not have a life long enough to set the inflammable material in the berths on fire.

The Banerjee Report has established that no one entered the coach from outside, with or without the canisters containing petroleum, through the doors or the connecting vestibule. No flaming torches could have been thrown into the coach from outside. Yet the terrible fire which took 58 lives and damaged the coach, could not have been accidental. It was a deliberate crime, planned and executed with knowledge and skill. So, with due respect, one disagrees with Justice Banerjee on the finding that there was no conspiracy. There was a conspiracy. The question is who were the conspirators?

We know how the Godhra fire was exploited politically to set the state on fire. The Sangh Parivar had taken the kar sevaks to Ayodhya to celebrate the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) expected victory in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly polls, in their own way, with a bit of Muslim-bashing. As the expected victory turned into resounding defeat, consigning the BJP to the fourth position in the state, the dejected kar sevaks were returning in an obviously bad mood, which is supported by reports of their behaviour in Lucknow and other stations. At the other end in Gujarat, the political scenario was a consistently negative run of bye-elections. The Sangh Parivar faced a compulsion to ensure the victory of the BJP in the coming Assembly elections. This compulsion became stronger, perhaps overwhelming, after the UP debacle. As usual, communal violence had always been on the agenda. The then head of the VHP in Gujarat is on record having said that the VHP had mapped Muslim houses and flats, shops and establishments in Ahmedabad and maybe in other places. We also know that without any reason and against the advice of the local administration, Chief Minister Modi had all the dead bodies transported to Ahmedabad. We also have the record of how the killers, the rapists and the arsonists were given a free run of the state and how the police was asked not to interfere with the expression of their indignant "reaction" that followed. So we have a political motive, the evidence of advance planning, and the execution of the first state-managed genocide in independent India, which was designed politically to benefit the BJP and which indeed enabled it to return to power in the state.

The problem for the beneficiary lay in how to manufacture a raison d'guerre, a justification, an excuse, a provocation, an event, an action to which, using Modi's language, the genocide could be projected as a "reaction". Strategic planning for victory in Gujarat demanded a dramatic event before the elections which would silence even the most secular-minded citizens or immobilize their sense of outrage, so that the normal impulse among them would be to say, "yes, they deserved it!"

Theoretically, we are faced with two alternatives. The train fire was an "accident" which proved to be a god-send for the VHP-BJP to trigger their plan into operation and set into motion their hordes to set Gujarat on fire. Or, that some one deliberately and ruthlessly ignited the fire — in diabolical contempt for human life, including some kar sevaks.

But even the devil needs a highly inflammable material, something which could be conveniently carried into a coach and readily ignited. Justice Banerjee found no such material, but coming on the scene after the lapse of 2 years, how could he have discovered even its traces?

Does such a material exist? What is the critical volume? What is the ignition time? Is it long enough for the "killer" to get off the coach or pass into another, out of harm's way? That such a material exists is known. It is alleged that such a material was used to devastate the Naroda Patia area of Ahmedabad during the riots. Observers have noticed a striking similarity in the pattern of fire and destruction in both cases. Perhaps the same or similar chemical was used in the wake of the Bhuj earthquake to demolish structures.