Godhra, April 27

On February 27, late by over four hours, the Ahmedabad-bound Sabarmati Express pulled into Godhra station. After a 25-minute halt, against the scheduled five-minute stoppage, the train pulled out of the platform. Even before it could gather speed, the pulling of the alarm chain brought the train to a halt near the Muslim-inhabited Signal Falia locality, less than a kilometre from the station. Twenty minutes later, compartment S-6 was on fire, as a result of which 58 passengers, including 26 women and 12 children were either choked or burnt to death.

Nothing, absolutely nothing can justify the killing of innocent people, whatever the provocation. But for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and many leading lights of the Sangh Parivar, this heinous crime became the justification for the "natural reaction" against Muslims across the state.

Even 50 days later, it is evident that only a full-fledged inquiry will be able to finally settle the issue of who was, and the motive behind, the torching of a few compartments of the Sabarmati Express. That such an inquiry must be conducted and the guilty punished is without question. Meanwhile, taken together, the comments of Ahmedabad's former commissioner of police, M M Singh ("Godhra has a history of communal riots. It was known that kar sevaks were coming by that route. This fact necessitated preventive deployment. That was, apparently, not done") and those of Major General (retired) Eustace De'Souza, who on more then one occasion has been involved in dousing the fire in communally-sensitive Godhra ("I see a fiendish plan") demand immediate attention ( see 'Shout 'Jai Sri Ram' - or else!' )

In a report published on February 25, the Jan Morcha, a Hindi daily published from Faizabad, detailed instances of provocative behaviour by kar sevaks, who allegedly beat and threatened Muslim passengers, insisting that they chant 'Jai Sri Ram'. They even unveiled Muslim women.

The Jan Morcha report published two days before the incident at Godhra, reports the conduct of kar sevaks from Gujarat headed for Ayodhya. But, by several accounts, the conduct of kar sevaks returning to Ahmedabad by the ill-fated Sabarmati Express on February 27 was no better.

The Hindu reported on February 28: "Eyewitnesses said that about 1,200 'Ram sevaks' were travelling in the train. The local people in the Muslim-dominated Godhra town had been 'irritated' by the 'abusive language' used by the 'Ram sevaks' while they were going to Ayodhya by the same train a few days ago. They had reportedly raised slogans as the train approached Godhra on the return journey this morning."

A report in The Times of India on February 28 stated: "Officials said a mob, enraged by the provocative slogan shouting by the VHP activists, attacked the train just after it left Godhra railway station at 6.30 am…Officials said it was possible that some passengers from Godhra travelling by the train had been harassed along the way by the VHP activists returning from Ayodhya and they had incited the mob to attack the passengers after getting off the train… However, other accounts say that the mob was waiting to pounce on the train because they knew the VHP and Bajrang Dal activists were returning from Ayodhya."

And, on March 7, Akbarbaig Sirajudding Shah, a Muslim passenger who was returning to Ahmedabad with his family, in an interview with the Gujarati daily, Gujarat Today, recounted the misbehaviour of the kar sevaks throughout the journey.

As stated earlier, no provocation whatsoever can justify a heinous crime like burning people to death. But the misconduct of kar sevaks is nonetheless important to record for two reasons: one, given such persistent hooliganism, where was the intelligence machinery of the law enforcement authorities? Why was no preventive measure taken by the police? Two, if the attack on kar sevaks were pre-planned, as Chief Minister Modi and Union Home Minister L K Advani have maintained, was the outrageous conduct of kar sevaks a part of the pre-planning?

The former Ahmedabad CP, MM Singh's has observed: "Burning nearly 60 passengers alive at a district headquarters railway station is unprecedented. Godhra has a history of communal riots. It was known that kar sevaks were coming by that route. This fact necessitated preventive deployment. That was, apparently, not done. With modern means of communication it should be unlikely that the multifarious safety and security installations at Godhra itself were not informed on the first sign of trouble, even one determined man in khaki firing a few effective shots could have checked the worst, as witnessed in Parliament.

"Godhra railway station has RPF (Railway Protection Force). Godhra has a railway police station, too. A district headquarters with police HQ, armed police, control room, town police station with eight chowkies, all equipped with telephones and a taluka police station, it is the HQ of SRP Bn, too, and has a municipal fire brigade. These are the points one has to ponder instead of a routine probe, whose report gathers dust." (Letter to the editor, The Times of India, March 1, 2002)

Godhra is a small town with a roughly equal population of Muslims and Hindus and a long and bloody history of communal tension and violence. The Muslims living at the Signal Falia area near the railway station, who allegedly attacked the Sabarmati Express with tragic consequences, are "Ghanchis", a largely uneducated and poor community, reportedly conservative and prone to react quickly; records and accounts also say that they have been quick to assemble and participate in earlier rounds of communal violence. Godhra has had tensions (that were incidentally quickly controlled by a quick recall of the army in 1948, in 1953-55, and again in 1985). This time, this did not happen.

Local accounts say that stories of the behaviour of kar sevaks (believed to be as many as 1,200 or so on board) had preceded the train's arrival. Dahod, an-hour-and-a-half before Godhra, had seen the eruption of tension and the news had already travelled. As the train pulled in and stopped at Godhra railway station, locals who live just outside the station recounted that they heard abusive shouts and sounds of stonethrowing from the station. Vendors near the station recounted that tea stall owners at the station (who, incidentally, hail from the same Ghanchi Muslim community) had an altercation with the kar sevaks who refused to pay. One elderly vendor on the platform was threatened by the kar sevaks and asked to shout slogans; they pulled his beard and assaulted him when he refused.

At this point, according to some locals who spoke to this writer on March 22, a local Muslim woman, Jaitunbibi was waiting for the train to Vadodara, scheduled to arrive at around 8 am, with her two young daughters, Sophiya and Shahidi. On observing the altercations, they tried to flee the station. Suddenly, a kar sevak obstructed their departure, grabbed Sophiya and tried to drag her inside the compartment. He did not succeed in doing so.