Mohan Guruswamy - Who lit the Godhra fire? (July 2002)
With the disclosure of the report of MS Dahiya, Assistant Director of the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Ahmedabad, the question of who lit the fire in coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27 killing 59 persons has now assumed critical importance. The report of the FSL, which is now part of the charge sheet, debunks the widely prevalent theory about the coach being set afire from outside by an angry mob, which had somewhat mysteriously collected outside the Godhra railway station. The report emphatically concludes that the coach was set afire by someone “standing in the passage of the compartment near seat number 72, using a container with a wide opening about 60 liters of inflammable liquid has been poured and then a fire has been started in the bogie.”
The FSL has also conclusively demonstrated by experiments that it was virtually impossible to throw inflammable liquids into the train through the open windows that are at a height of seven feet. The report also states that there was a three feet high mound running parallel to the track at a distance of 14 feet and if the fire bombers were standing on this mound and sloshing the fuel at the compartment only about 10-15% of the fuel would have got inside. Since the rest of the fuel would then have fallen outside there would have been burn damage on and near the track. This was not so. File photographs of the burning coach very clearly show the flames raging from within and without even the external paintwork being touched. The pictures also show rescuers trying to hose down the flames standing right alongside the burning coach. Very obviously the coach was set afire from within and whosoever still insists that it was set afire from outside by the incensed mob is lying through their teeth.
This report is indeed incendiary stuff. No sooner it was published by a leading newspaper, the Deputy Prime Minister debunked it. By doing so he was questioning a professional forensic analysis and seeking to replace it with his political convenience. To sustain itself the BJP government in Gujarat requires that the coach was set afire by the Muslim mob and therefore justifying the open participation of all branches of the sangh Parivar with the connivance of the state government. Unfortunately the FSL report is a part of the states charge sheet and now a part of the record. We now are being treated to deliberately leaked stories that some “suspects” after being injected with sodium pentothal have confessed to burning the coach. The use of sodium pentothal is considered inhumane and any admission under its influence is not admissible in a court of law. But the issue is not about law and justice any more but about making malicious and untrue propaganda.
The train was chock-a-block full of kar sevaks and whosoever was carrying “a container with a wide opening holding about 60 liters of inflammable liquid” should have been able to mingle freely with the inflamed kar sevaks. If this whosoever it was, was carrying such a container with a wide opening quite openly he, she or they would have been known to the other passengers to be able to do so without arousing apprehensions. Remember the country was in a state of heightened military alert after the December 13 attack on the Parliament and it would just not be possible for a stranger to walk into a crowded coach of true believers with a large container with liquid sloshing about.
The train was almost a Rambhakt special and each compartment was concentrated with people from a particular area or belonging to a particular group within the Sangh Parivar, all of who would have been known to each other. It is therefore extremely implausible that a perfect stranger or strangers would have been able to splash the petrol and set it alight and then escape. The killer/killers would have had to been in the adjoining compartment or be able to alight quickly from the burning compartment without arousing suspicion. Furthermore the train was stopped by pulling the emergency chain and that can only be from inside. It is now being suggested, once again by carefully planted leaks, that the miscreants entered the coach by cutting through the Rexene cover of the vestibule. Entry in this manner with an open vessel carrying an inflammable fluid is impossible. Even if were somehow achieved it could not be done without spilling the container, in which case there would be burn marks outside. There were none.
It would now seem that the harassment and intimidation of the mostly Muslim hawkers at Godhra railway station was deliberate and aimed at provoking an agitated response. But petty harassment in itself would not have provoked such a disproportionate reaction as torching a train. It would seem that someone wished to take advantage of this reaction and if this was so, the torching of coach S-6 could have been intended to provoke a furious backlash. This seems like a classic agent provocateur operation that went out of hand.
The use of agent provocateurs to create a crisis is not at all uncommon. We see much of it all around. Sometime it is a pig’s head that is thrown in a mosque, another time it is a cow’s head that is thrown into a temple. Cadre based political parties for who the end justifies all means are especially adept at this. I recall watching the live telecast on a local channel of a demonstration in Hyderabad against the increase in power tariffs and was struck by the extremely deliberate provocations of a very small group that changed a peaceful gathering into a furious mob causing the police to open fire at it. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was very clearly perpetrated by just a handful of persons who came prepared to do the job. The record shows that while Uma Bharati and Murli Manohar Joshi were hugging each other in ecstatic joy, a glum LK Advani looked on helplessly.
Its not only cadre based political parties that do this. Countries with active intelligence services routinely do this. Intelligence agencies like the American CIA, British SIS, French SDECE, Israeli Mossad, Russian FSB, Chinese GRI, Pakistani ISI and even the Indian RAW carry out such operations quite routinely. Even now Pakistan insists that the January 30, 1971 hijacking of “Ganga”, an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft, to Lahore by Hashim and Ashraf Qureshi was an Indian intelligence operation meant to precipitate the termination of over flights to Dhaka making the link between the two Pakistani halves even more tenuous.
In 1991 a unit of the Peoples War Group attacked the Kakatiya Fast Passenger train at Charlapalli near Hyderabad killing 47 passengers in the blaze set off by them. It took only a small quantity of incendiary material to set off the blaze. One of the attackers was apprehended. Later the PWG issued a statement that the death of 47 passengers was inadvertent and expressed regret for it.
In another incident at 4.30 am on March 8, 1993 in AP’s Guntur district two dalit youths Satuluri Chalapathi Rao (24) and Gantela Vijayvardhana Rao (22) inspired by the plot a popular Telugu movie held up an APRTC express bus from Hyderabad to Chilkaluripet under the threat of torching it. They wanted money to start a business. Things didn’t happen as they did in the movie. The passengers panicked and in the ensuing melee the can of petrol dropped in the bus, which in turn had a leaky fuel tank and resulted in an explosive fire. 22 passengers including two children were killed. In both cases while there was intent to commit a crime, what resulted was not intended.
But it is difficult to imagine that a container with a wide mouth carrying at least 60 liters of petrol was meant to cause just an innocuous incident on the Sabarmati Express. Clearly there are many questions to be answered, particularly in light of the subsequent events for which even the National Human Rights Commission, headed by as widely respected jurist as the former Chief Justice of India, Justice AN Verma, found the Gujarat government complicit.
The chota Sardar in Gujarat is plowing on remorselessly with his campaign of igniting communal passions, and the bada Sardar in New Delhi just sits there wringing his hands. As he did when the Babri Masjid was demolished. As he did when Hindus were killed in Doda. As he did when Sikhs were killed in Anantnag. As he did when Christians were killed in the Dangs. As he did when the Red Fort was attacked. As he did when Parliament was attacked on December 13. As he did when BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal mobs and a “complicit” state government went on the rampage in Gujarat from January 28 onwards. Shakespeare’s wrote about Lady Macbeth: “It is an accustom’d action with her, to seem thus washing her hands.” And the Sardars must now wonder as Macbeth did: “What will these hand ne’er be clean?”
See also
Ishrat Jahan case: Gujarat High Court raps CBI over delay in filing chargesheet
Sadiq Jamal Case: CBI Files Affidavit, Says Probe In Progress
Gujarat Police killed Sadiq Jamal despite Intelligence Bureau's clean chit
The FSL has also conclusively demonstrated by experiments that it was virtually impossible to throw inflammable liquids into the train through the open windows that are at a height of seven feet. The report also states that there was a three feet high mound running parallel to the track at a distance of 14 feet and if the fire bombers were standing on this mound and sloshing the fuel at the compartment only about 10-15% of the fuel would have got inside. Since the rest of the fuel would then have fallen outside there would have been burn damage on and near the track. This was not so. File photographs of the burning coach very clearly show the flames raging from within and without even the external paintwork being touched. The pictures also show rescuers trying to hose down the flames standing right alongside the burning coach. Very obviously the coach was set afire from within and whosoever still insists that it was set afire from outside by the incensed mob is lying through their teeth.
This report is indeed incendiary stuff. No sooner it was published by a leading newspaper, the Deputy Prime Minister debunked it. By doing so he was questioning a professional forensic analysis and seeking to replace it with his political convenience. To sustain itself the BJP government in Gujarat requires that the coach was set afire by the Muslim mob and therefore justifying the open participation of all branches of the sangh Parivar with the connivance of the state government. Unfortunately the FSL report is a part of the states charge sheet and now a part of the record. We now are being treated to deliberately leaked stories that some “suspects” after being injected with sodium pentothal have confessed to burning the coach. The use of sodium pentothal is considered inhumane and any admission under its influence is not admissible in a court of law. But the issue is not about law and justice any more but about making malicious and untrue propaganda.
The train was chock-a-block full of kar sevaks and whosoever was carrying “a container with a wide opening holding about 60 liters of inflammable liquid” should have been able to mingle freely with the inflamed kar sevaks. If this whosoever it was, was carrying such a container with a wide opening quite openly he, she or they would have been known to the other passengers to be able to do so without arousing apprehensions. Remember the country was in a state of heightened military alert after the December 13 attack on the Parliament and it would just not be possible for a stranger to walk into a crowded coach of true believers with a large container with liquid sloshing about.
The train was almost a Rambhakt special and each compartment was concentrated with people from a particular area or belonging to a particular group within the Sangh Parivar, all of who would have been known to each other. It is therefore extremely implausible that a perfect stranger or strangers would have been able to splash the petrol and set it alight and then escape. The killer/killers would have had to been in the adjoining compartment or be able to alight quickly from the burning compartment without arousing suspicion. Furthermore the train was stopped by pulling the emergency chain and that can only be from inside. It is now being suggested, once again by carefully planted leaks, that the miscreants entered the coach by cutting through the Rexene cover of the vestibule. Entry in this manner with an open vessel carrying an inflammable fluid is impossible. Even if were somehow achieved it could not be done without spilling the container, in which case there would be burn marks outside. There were none.
It would now seem that the harassment and intimidation of the mostly Muslim hawkers at Godhra railway station was deliberate and aimed at provoking an agitated response. But petty harassment in itself would not have provoked such a disproportionate reaction as torching a train. It would seem that someone wished to take advantage of this reaction and if this was so, the torching of coach S-6 could have been intended to provoke a furious backlash. This seems like a classic agent provocateur operation that went out of hand.
The use of agent provocateurs to create a crisis is not at all uncommon. We see much of it all around. Sometime it is a pig’s head that is thrown in a mosque, another time it is a cow’s head that is thrown into a temple. Cadre based political parties for who the end justifies all means are especially adept at this. I recall watching the live telecast on a local channel of a demonstration in Hyderabad against the increase in power tariffs and was struck by the extremely deliberate provocations of a very small group that changed a peaceful gathering into a furious mob causing the police to open fire at it. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was very clearly perpetrated by just a handful of persons who came prepared to do the job. The record shows that while Uma Bharati and Murli Manohar Joshi were hugging each other in ecstatic joy, a glum LK Advani looked on helplessly.
Its not only cadre based political parties that do this. Countries with active intelligence services routinely do this. Intelligence agencies like the American CIA, British SIS, French SDECE, Israeli Mossad, Russian FSB, Chinese GRI, Pakistani ISI and even the Indian RAW carry out such operations quite routinely. Even now Pakistan insists that the January 30, 1971 hijacking of “Ganga”, an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft, to Lahore by Hashim and Ashraf Qureshi was an Indian intelligence operation meant to precipitate the termination of over flights to Dhaka making the link between the two Pakistani halves even more tenuous.
In 1991 a unit of the Peoples War Group attacked the Kakatiya Fast Passenger train at Charlapalli near Hyderabad killing 47 passengers in the blaze set off by them. It took only a small quantity of incendiary material to set off the blaze. One of the attackers was apprehended. Later the PWG issued a statement that the death of 47 passengers was inadvertent and expressed regret for it.
In another incident at 4.30 am on March 8, 1993 in AP’s Guntur district two dalit youths Satuluri Chalapathi Rao (24) and Gantela Vijayvardhana Rao (22) inspired by the plot a popular Telugu movie held up an APRTC express bus from Hyderabad to Chilkaluripet under the threat of torching it. They wanted money to start a business. Things didn’t happen as they did in the movie. The passengers panicked and in the ensuing melee the can of petrol dropped in the bus, which in turn had a leaky fuel tank and resulted in an explosive fire. 22 passengers including two children were killed. In both cases while there was intent to commit a crime, what resulted was not intended.
But it is difficult to imagine that a container with a wide mouth carrying at least 60 liters of petrol was meant to cause just an innocuous incident on the Sabarmati Express. Clearly there are many questions to be answered, particularly in light of the subsequent events for which even the National Human Rights Commission, headed by as widely respected jurist as the former Chief Justice of India, Justice AN Verma, found the Gujarat government complicit.
The chota Sardar in Gujarat is plowing on remorselessly with his campaign of igniting communal passions, and the bada Sardar in New Delhi just sits there wringing his hands. As he did when the Babri Masjid was demolished. As he did when Hindus were killed in Doda. As he did when Sikhs were killed in Anantnag. As he did when Christians were killed in the Dangs. As he did when the Red Fort was attacked. As he did when Parliament was attacked on December 13. As he did when BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal mobs and a “complicit” state government went on the rampage in Gujarat from January 28 onwards. Shakespeare’s wrote about Lady Macbeth: “It is an accustom’d action with her, to seem thus washing her hands.” And the Sardars must now wonder as Macbeth did: “What will these hand ne’er be clean?”
See also
