Godhra

Godhra

The Sabarmati Express train started from Ahmedabad for Ayodhya on February22, 2002, with kar sevaks on board. It appears that on its onward journey to Ayodhya,there was an incident at Dahod railway station where the kar sevaks indulged in van-dalism and terrorising of Muslim vendors at the station. According to another ver-sion, the Dahod incident took place on the return journey. There is no clear evidenceof the date of the incident but it is clear that it took place.

There was another incident between Rudauli and Daryabad stations (closer toFaizabad) wherein the kar sevaks attacked Muslim passengers, including innocentwomen and children. When some young man protested against this, he was thrownoff the train between Patranga and Rojagaon stations. Several women, badly woundedand covered in blood, jumped off the train at Rudauli station. The kar sevaks got offand started attacking those whom they identified as Muslim from among those presentat the platform.

At Rudauli station, other similar incidents occurred, such as forcing the Muslims toshout, ‘Jai Shri Ram!’, pulling the beards of some of them, including stabbing withtrishul. Despite the severity of these incidents, there was no prompt action takeneither by the railway authorities or the police; nor were those seriously injured rushedto hospital. It appears that both local Hindus and Muslims condemned the attack andthat Muslim religious leaders appealed for peace and urged that there should be noretaliation. (Report in Jan Morcha, published from Faizabad on February 25, 2002, two daysbefore the Godhra incident on the return journey of the same Sabarmati Express– see Annexure7 Volume 1.)

As the train travelled back from Ayodhya on its return journey to Ahmedabad, karsevak girls and boys armed with trishuls and lathis, were getting down at every stationand shouting slogans like, “Mandir Vahin Banayenge!”, “Jai Shriram!”, “Muslim BharatChodo, Pakistan Jao” (“Muslims, Quit India! Go to Pakistan”), “Dudh mango tho kheer denge,Kashmir mango tho cheer denge” (“Ask for milk and we’ll give you kheer (pudding), But ask forKashmir and we’ll cut you up”). Many passengers felt harassed by this behaviour but wereconstrained to silence because the kar sevaks had captured all the reserved seats andthe train was jam-packed.

The train reached Godhra station at 7.30 a.m. (three hours late), on February 27,2002. There were certain incidents on the platform. There were some reports to theeffect that a Muslim girl was molested by the kar sevaks who attempted to pull herinto the train. The attempt to take her into the train was averted due to the interven-tion by Muslim vendors at the Godhra railway station.

In a separate incident, a Muslim tea vendor had boarded coach S-6 with an alumi-num tea kitli and plastic cups to sell tea. Passengers started to buy tea from him but hewas insulted by some of the kar sevaks and sent out of the coach. It appears that somekar sevaks, identified by their saffron head bands and trishuls, had climbed onto theroofs of coaches of the Sabarmati Express as it stopped at the Godhra railway sta-tion, stripped themselves and made obscene gestures at Muslim women residing justopposite the station, who had come out to perform their morning chores. There wasalso some stone throwing, both from within and from outside the compartments.

As the train left the platform, at 7.48 a.m., it was immediately stopped by someonepulling the chain. The obvious reason for this was to enable some of the kar sevaks whowere still left behind on the platform to enter the train. The train proceeded for about akilometre. At Singal Falia the train stopped. Whether this was on account of someonepulling the chain or otherwise is not clear. The engine driver, at that point of time, hadonly seen someone from outside pelting stones at the train though not at coach S-6.Soon thereafter, coach S-6 was on fire. The question is, how did the fire occur?

The version of the government appears to be that the Ghanchi Muslims residingnear the railway station, who had gathered in large numbers, threw fireballs into thetrain and that resulted in the fire. The government version also has it that theseGhanchi Muslims wanted to attack the kar sevaks, and that there were about 2,000Muslims who were bent on attacking the train.

It may be stated at this stage that the full capacity of the train is 1,100. But, in fact,the train at that time had about 2,000 passengers, of which about 1,700 were karsevaks. As far as coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express is concerned, the reservationcapacity is 72. However, it was jam-packed on that day. Only one coach was burnedand even in that coach one is not sure how many passengers were kar sevaks. The trainhad 11 coaches with vestibule connection and the kar sevaks were spread all over thetrain. So why did anyone target coach S-6? If 2,000 Muslims had gathered there,could they not have attacked the other coaches? Again, did anyone try to come outfrom the other coaches? If it is reasonably presumed that some of the passengers,including kar sevaks, rushed out, did anyone attack them? On all these questions thereis no satisfactory answer.

In all, 58 bodies were found in coach S-6, out of which 26 were of women, 12 wereof children and 20 were of men. It appears that 43 persons sustained injuries, of whom only 5 were admitted to the hospital. The rest were treated for minor injurieslike bruises, and were allowed to go. Out of the five admitted to hospital, one died,and the rest were discharged after 3 or 4 days.

Since the bodies were charred beyond recognition, it was not possible to identifyanyone on the basis of physical features. The collector of Godhra told the Tribunal thatonly five bodies could be identified on the basis of articles or things which were on theirperson. One was the local station master’s wife who had boarded the train at Godhra togo to Vadodara. She had a metal tiffin box in her hand and she was thus identified.Thus, no one could say with certainty that the dead bodies were all of kar sevaks.