“Godhra”is a town located in Panchmahal district in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word “Godhra” records the gruesome killing of some 59 innocent people, including 25 women and 15 children and injuries to 40 by a mob of 2000 fanatic Muslims on 27 February 2002.

     On 9 October 2017 the High Court of Gujarat State of India upheld the conviction of all 31 accused in the Godhra train burning case but commuted the death penalty of 11 to life imprisonment. Thus all 31 Muslims convicted have been given life imprisonment. Later, 4 more Muslims who were absconding were convicted after separate trial, taking the number of convictions to 35. Total 94 accused were standing trial, of whom 63 were acquitted by the trial court, which was also upheld by the High Court. Earlier on 22 February 2011 the trial court had also convicted exactly the same 31 Muslims, but given death penalty to 11 of them, and life imprisonment to remaining 20.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) [literally “World Council of Hindus”] had organized a ‘Purnahuti Yagya’ (Yagya is a Hindu religious ceremony) in Ayodhya (one of the holiest, or the holiest Hindu city, as sacred to Hindus as Mecca, Medina are to Muslims, in Uttar Pradesh state in North India where it is believed Lord Ram was born) in February-March 2002. It declared 15^th  March 2002 as the date for the beginning of the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya at the place which is a sacred site of the Hindus, believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram. [Belgium-based world famous scholar Dr Koenraad Elst (1959-) has also written: “It is entirely obvious that a Hindu sacred site belongs to Hindus and to no one else.“]  People participating in this ‘Yagya’ had simply participated and gone home. They did not stay in Ayodhya  until  15^th  March, 2002 for the construction  of the Ram temple  in Ayodhya  at the undisputed  site (majority of the undisputed land was owned by VHP and affiliated bodies and the SC in its order of 1994 had said that the undisputed land can be given to its owner).

    People from  all  parts  of  the  country  went  to  Ayodhya, participated  in this event, i.e. the  Purnahuti Yagya and returned home  from  mid-February  to 27^th February 2002. A  trainload  of such  people  called  ‘karsevaks’ or ‘Ramsevaks’  were  returning  to Ahmedabad city  in the western Gujarat state  from  Ayodhya  after participating in the Purnahuti Yagya. Whether they were all members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or just ordinary people supporting the VHP’s stance on the Ram temple in Ayodhya is not known.

    The train, the Sabarmati Express was supposed to reach Ahmedabad [The commercial capital and biggest city of Gujarat State of India, and also twin city of its specially planned capital city of Gandhinagar] early in the morning.  It was running more than four hours late (Source: India Today, dated 11^th  March, 2002). It reached Godhra station at 7:42 am instead of the scheduled time of 2:55 am. Shortly after the train left the Godhra railway station at 7: 47 a.m., a mob of 2000 fanatic Muslims  stopped it. This was 500-700 meters away from the Godhra railway station, at Signal Falia area, which is a densely populated Muslim area. The train was not burnt at the railway station, but at Signal Falia. That is why the attackers could not burn the train from outside.  Had it been on a railway platform, they would not have found it too high. But at Signal Falia, it was too high. Hence, some of them entered the train cutting the vestible from the side coach number S-7 and set it afire from inside and then went out again. The mob was reportedly armed with petrol bombs, acid bombs and swords. The attackers poured petrol into the compartment and then set it afire. Two thousand people were standing on all sides of the compartment to prevent the karsevaks from running away and saving their lives from the fire. The karsevaks were literally caught between devil and the deep sea. There was fire inside and armed Muslims outside. 59 karsevaks were burnt to death in a most horrifying manner. Many of the bodies were charred horrifically. The victims included 25 women, 15 children, including some toddlers and some old people of above 65. They were all done to death in the most brutal manner.

Account of a 16-year-old Survivor

   On 27^th  February, Gayatri Panchal, a young eleventh class student, was also amongst those who were returning from Ayodhya.  She is a surviving witness to the inhuman atrocious cruelty in which right in front of her eyes two of her sisters and parents were burnt alive.

   Harshadbhai Panchal, a resident of Ramol, left for karseva at Ayodhya on 22^nd  February, together with  his wife,  Neetaben and three daughters, Pratiksha, Chhaya and Gayatri. His sister-in-law, her son, her neighbour, Poojaben and her would-be husband were also accompanying him.

   All of them were returning to Ahmedabad along with several other karsevaks. Harshadbhai and his family, Poojaben and her husband were in one compartment, while his sister-in-law and her husband and their son were in another compartment. The only survivor out of these ten, Gayatri, says about this horrible event that,

   “On the 27th morning, at around 8 a.m. the train left Godhra Station. The karsevaks were loudly chanting the Ram Dhoon. The train had hardly gone a few meters, when it suddenly stopped. Somebody had perhaps pulled the chain to stop the train. Before anybody could know what had happened, we saw a huge mob approaching the train. People were carrying weapons like Gupti, Spears, Swords and such other deadly weapons in their hands and were throwing stones at the train. We all got frightened and somehow closed the windows and the doors of the compartment. People outside were shouting loudly, saying ‘Maro, Kato’ and were attacking the train. A loudspeaker from the Masjid closeby was also very loudly shouting ‘Maro, Kato, Laden na dushmano ne Maro.’ (“Cut, kill, kill the enemies of Laden”)These attackers were so fierce that they managed to break the windows and close the doors from outside before pouring petrol inside and setting the compartment on fire so that nobody could escape alive. A number of attackers entered the compartment and were beating the karsevaks and looting their belongings. The compartments were drenched in petrol all over. We were terrified and were shouting for help but who was there to help us? A few policemen were later seen approaching the compartment but they were also whisked away by the furious mob outside. There was so much of smoke in the compartment that we were unable to see each other and also getting suffocated. Going out was too difficult, however, myself and Pooja somehow managed to jump out through the windows. Pooja was hurt in her back and was unable to stand up. People outside were trying to hold us to take us away but we could escape and run under the burning  train and succeeded in crawling  towards the cabin. I have seen my parents and sisters being burnt alive right in front of my eyes.” Luckily, by the grace of God, Gayatri was not hurt too badly. “We somehow managed to go up to the station and meet our aunty (Masi). After the compartments were completely burnt, the crowd started withering. We saw that even amongst them were men, women and youngsters like us, both male and female. I returned here after evacuating the dead bodies of my family members at Godhra Station. Out of 18 of us, ten had laid their lives.”

   (Source: Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Gujarat and various  English dailies such as  The Indian Express dated 28th February, 2002).

   A foreign daily Portsmouth Herald reported: “Sixteen-year-old  Gayatri Panchal saw her mother, father and two sisters die before her eyes in the train fire as they returned home after participating in a religious ceremony at Ayodhya. ‘We were sleeping and I opened my eyes when I felt the heat. I saw flames everywhere. My mother was in flames, her clothes were on fire,’ she said. ‘Someone pulled me out of the compartment and then I saw my father’s body being taken out. He was covered in black. Then I  fainted.’”

 (URL: http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20020228/news/302289980 ).

    The Times of India reported 1 year later, on 27 Feb 2003:

“For the four Panchal sisters — Komal (20), Avani (19), Gayatri (17) and Priyanka (15) — the last year has been full of tears. Their father Harshad Panchal, mother Mita Panchal, sisters Pratiksha and Chhaya fell prey to the barbarity in Godhra on February 27. And, life was never the same again.

    The result. Gayatri, a topper in SSC, today is sickly and struggling with education at grade XII. Lost without their parents the girls often go to bed in tears, as memories of the tragedy come flooding back every day. Said Komal, ‘We are trying to get on with life but it is difficult. Life seems meaningless without the love and affection of parents.’”

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/38702737.cms?prtpage=1 )

   “After pelting stones, they started pouring kerosene in our compartments and set them afire. Only a few of us managed to come out of the broken windows.  The adults and the old people were stuck inside. The old women were pleading, ‘don’t kill us’ but they just didn’t listen,” says Gayatri Panchal (16), who says 3-4 people ran after her as soon as she jumped off the train (The Indian Express, 28th February, 2002).

   Sixty-five-year-old Devika Luhana was trembling with anger as she alighted from the ill-fated train. “It was vandalism at its worst. They did not even spare old people like me and pelted stones indiscriminately. They will all go to hell for this act of malice,” said Devika, who could not even retrieve her bag as she ran for her life.

   “They stormed inside the women’s bogie, and before we could react, they set the entire bogie on fire.  Some of us managed to escape, but a number of our sisters got trapped…it was horrifying,” said Hetal Patel, a member of Durga Vahini [a women’s youth wing of VHP].

   Terror still haunts 13-year-old Gyanprakash as he bursts into tears from time to time. “I cannot forget the sight of people burning in front of me,” he says while recuperating at the Ahmedabad city hospital. Gyanprakash was on the S2 coach of the Sabarmati Express when it was set ablaze in Godhra on Wednesday. His family was returning to Ahmedabad after attending a relative’s funeral. They had boarded the train at Kanpur. Gyanprakash recalls the horror: “The train had just left Godhra but stopped a little way away from the station. Suddenly, stones were being thrown at the train. The pelting continued for almost an hour. Then something was hurled into our coach and there was smoke everywhere.

   “It was so suffocating I could hardly breathe. I heard my father telling me to get off the train. I went to the door but saw that people trying to get off were being stabbed. I went to the other side and jumped off” (Mid-Day, 6th March, 2002).

   That is, old women were pleading: “Don’t kill us” but the attackers did not spare anyone, neither children nor old people, and certainly not the women. Most horrific was the attackers’ act of not allowing anyone to escape and watching with their eyes 59 Hindus roasting to death, crying with pain, pleading for mercy. (Those who did come out like Gayatri Panchal were also tried to be pushed back.) Had the 2,000 attackers shot dead, these 59 people with bullets, it would not have been so horrific.  Had they set afire the train and ran away, it would not have angered the masses so much. But these attackers were indescribable barbarians. They watched and pushed back into fire the victims including 15 children and roasted to death in a horrific manner 59 Hindus returning from Godhra.

Around one week after the Godhra massacre of 27 February 2002, there was a malicious email circulated, copied from an Islamic website purporting to be a news portal, making horrible character assassinating and fake charges on the dead kar sewaks of Godhra. Prem Shankar Jha revealed this in Outlook dated 25 March 2002. He wrote:

“I am writing this column primarily to keep my promise to a young boy. About a week after the burning of the train at Godhra, a mysterious e-mail began to circulate in places as far apart as Delhi, Mumbai and Ann Arbor, Michigan. It gave what was purportedly the true story of the events that led to the burning of the train at Godhra. This is what the e-mail said:

“The tragic incident of Sabarmati Express that occurred about 1 km away from Godhra railway station has thrown a question mark to those people who claim to be secular or liberal. Many aspects and facts have been ignored and which I would like to bring to your notice. Compartment no S-6, along with two other compartments, of the Sabarmati Express was carrying the kar sevaks of the VHP. And it was due to these kar sevaks from compartment no S-6 that the incident occurred. The actual story didn’t start from Godhra as being told everywhere but it started from a place from Daahod 75 km before Godhra railway station. At about 5:30 to 6:00 am the train reached Daahod railway station. These kar sevaks, after having tea and snacks at the railway stall, broke down the stall after having some argument with the stall owner and they proceeded back to the departing train. The stall owner then filed an NC against kar sevaks at the local police station about the above incident. Then about 7:00 to 7:15 am the train reached Godhra railway station. All the kar sevaks came out from their reserved compartments and started to have tea and snacks, at the small tea stall on the platform, which was being run by an old bearded man from the minority community. There was a servant helping this old man in the stall. The kar sevaks on purpose argued with this old man and then bate him up and pulled his beard. This was all planned to humiliate the old man since he was from the minority community. These kar sevaks kept repeating the slogan, ‘Mandir ka nirmaan karo, Babar ki aulad ko bahar karo‘ (start building the mandir and throw the sons of Babar i.e the Muslims out of the country). Hearing the chaos, the daughter (16) of the old man who was also present at the station came forward and tried to save her father from kar sevaks. She kept pleading and begging them to stop beating her father and leave him alone. But instead of listening to her woes, the kar sevaks lifted the young girl and took her inside their compartment (S-6) and closed the compartment door shut. The train started to move out of the platform of Godhra railway station. The old man kept banging on the compartment doors and pleaded to leave his daughter. Just before the train could move out completely from the platform, two stall vendors jumped into the last bogey that comes after the guard cabin. And with the intention of saving the girl, they pulled the chain and stopped the train. By the time the train halted completely, it was 1 km away from the railway station.

“These two men then came to the bogey in which the girl was and started to bang at the door and requested the kar sevaks to leave the girl alone. Hearing all this chaos, people in the vicinity near the tracks started to gather towards the train. The boys and the mob (that also included women) that had now gathered near the compartment requested the kar sevaks to return the girl back. But instead of returning the girl, they started closing their windows. This infuriated the mob and they retaliated by pelting stones at the compartment. The compartment adjoining compartment S-6 on both sides contained kar sevaks of the VHP. These kar sevaks were carrying banners that had long bamboo sticks attached to them. These kar sevaks got down and started attacking with bamboo sticks on the mob gathered to save the girl. This was like adding insult to injury for the crowd gathered and their anger was now uncontrollable. The crowd started to bring diesel and petrol from trucks and rickshaws standing at the garages. They didn’t bring the fuel from any petrol pump as being reported everywhere nor was this act of burning pre-planned as being mentioned by many people but it happened all of a sudden out of sheer frustration and anger. After hearing about this incident, members of VHP living in that area started burning down the garages in Signal Fadia, they also burnt down Badshah Masjid, at Shehra Bhagaad (a small area in Godhra). Reliable resources have reported all this information and facts to me (and) their information can’t be doubted. I would also mention my sources namely Mr Anil Soni and Neelam Soni (reporters of Gujarat Samachar newspaper and also a member of PTI and ANI) have worked hard to dig the true facts and they duly deserve words of appraisal for their hard work.”

The letter then gave Soni’s residential, office and mobile phone numbers. The story was disturbing, to say the least. Much of it had already appeared in print. But there were strange inconsistencies. Would kar sevaks force a girl into a compartment occupied by their families? Soni’s mobile number gave the prefix as 0098 and not 098. Lastly, I was familiar with a First Information Report (FIR) but had never heard of an NC. So, I rang up Anil Soni in Godhra to get more details. That was when I got my first surprise. Soni not only categorically denied having ever filed such a story but also claimed that the contents of the mail were the exact opposite of what had happened. We were interrupted by another phone call (his life was being made miserable by inquiries). The next day when I called him again, he was out but I got his young son Vimal on the line. Vimal told me in great detail what his father had actually found out at the site of the tragedy. He said it was pre-planned and went on to add chilling details that his father had not included in his stories. He ended by entreating me to publicise the fact that his father did not file such a story. I am fulfilling my promise to him.”

That was fine. But after that Outlook should have published Anil Soni’s report on Godhra which said that the attack was pre-meditated and that the mob was ready and waiting, and that no one’s stall was destroyed by karsewaks, there was no attempt (successful or unsuccessful) to kidnap any Muslim girl and the train reached Godhra at 7:42 am and not 7 to 7:15 am. Prem Shankar Jha is an extremely anti-BJP, anti-Narendra Modi, pro-Muslim man. But his article revealed the reality of the mail. He however, believed that mail at first, and got a ‘surprise’ when he called Anil Soni to ‘find out more details’. He should have realized that had Anil Soni really filed such a report, it would have appeared in leading Indian news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) in his name, not in an e-mail, whose contents were obviously false.

Varsha Bhosle wrote on Rediff.com on 11 March 2002:

“… (the fake mail) gave 3 phone numbers of the Sonis. Well, I found Mr Soni at (02672) 40264. He said, “Are you calling up about the emails? That is completely bogus and rubbish. It is the work of my enemies.”

That’s how Islamists work – knowing well what “secularists” *like* to believe.

The portal whence the “news” was lifted proclaims to disseminate “Original Accurate News for the Ummah” and the item in question is written by Rajeel Sheikh and was published on March 2 (which was when I read it, 3 days before dorks sought to enlighten me).”

It is only after this malicious and false claim which was first made on an Islamic website [that website alleged that Jews did 9/11, called killings of terrorists in Kashmir as ‘Indian Army’s terrorism’, etc], falsely in the name of a PTI reporter Anil Soni, that the slander of the dead kar sewaks of Godhra reached unimaginably low levels. This claim was sent through numerous emails everywhere, including to British and American newspapers. After this, this claim was copied further by various newspapers in India and abroad, and various weeklies.

The Independent (UK) insulted the dead kar sewaks and made false allegations. The report written by Peter Popham published on 20 March 2002 said:

“…What happened in car S/6 was the hideous finale. The story began nearly 36 hours earlier.

Many were also drunk or stoned, or equipped to get that way: flexible, tolerant Hinduism has no hard and fast rules about such things. And they were coming back to Gujarat, the only state in the Indian union that is still “dry”. All the more reason to have a bottle or two tucked away.

… The train was late: after a day and a half, it was running four and a half hours behind schedule. That’s why it arrived in Godhra not at 2.55 am, as scheduled, but at 7.15 am. By this time, the karsevaks were much worse for wear. Trouble had started at Dahod station, nearly one hour and 75km up the tracks. The train reached Dahod around 6 am, and a number of karsevaks got out of compartment S/6 to have tea and snacks at a stall on the platform. Already they were drunk and unruly. An argument broke out between the Hindus and the Muslim man running the tea stall – according to one account, they refused to pay unless he chanted “Jai Shri Ram”, the chant of Lord Ram’s devotees. He refused to oblige, and they started to smash up his stall, before climbing back into the carriage. The stallholder filed a complaint with the railway police. At Godhra, a similar scene ensued. The karsevaks, now noisily drunk, poured onto the platform, ordered more tea and snacks, consumed them, and then made difficulties. Exactly what transpired between the bearded Muslim stallholder and the travellers varies from one account to another. But all witness accounts seen by The Independent agree that there was a row. “They argued with the old man on purpose,” one witness said, on condition of anonymity. “They pulled his beard and beat him up… They kept repeating the slogan ‘mandir ki nirmaan karo, Babar ki aulad ko bahar karo’.” (“Build the temple and throw out the Muslims…”).

Suddenly the row took a dangerous new turn: the karsevaks grabbed hold of a Muslim woman. Her identity, and how she became involved, remain ambiguous, but four different witnesses mention this event. One says it was the 16-year-old daughter of the abused tea seller. She “came forward and tried to save her father”. Another mentions a woman washing clothes by the railway line being hauled away. A third describes how a Muslim girl wearing a burqa and taking a shortcut to school through the station platform was pounced on and dragged into the carriage. All agree that a Muslim woman was hauled into the carriage by the karsevaks, who slammed the door and would not let her go. Refusing to be quoted by name, a local policeman confirms the story. And suddenly, what had been just an ugly little fracas, a drunken pantomime of power and subjugation, became something far more explosive.

The karsevaks were too drunk for their own good, or they would have chosen a different station at which to pull such a stunt. Because now the social geography of Godhra came into play.…Godhra station, to the regret of the Hindus, is located in an area that is now entirely Muslim. And a huddle of Muslim-owned businesses sprang up in shacks alongside the tracks, many of them motor-repair yards. This little slum, known as Signal Fadia, has all the material a riot could require: stacks of bricks, petrol, and paraffin and Calor gas cylinders. But it also had the necessary human material: a community impoverished and bitter and surviving on the margins of criminality. The woman seized by the karsevaks was dragged into compartment S/6, and word of what had happened began to spread. “The girl began screaming for help,” said Ahmed, a wood dealer who was waiting for a train going the other way. “Muslims who were travelling on the train got off. People began pouring onto the platform to try to rescue her. I ran home – I could see trouble was brewing…”

The train moved off, and the gathering crowd began pelting the carriage with bricks. Inside the train, someone pulled the emergency cord; the train stopped, then moved off again; the cord was pulled again 1km out of the station, and this time the train stopped and stayed stopped. “People in the vicinity… started to gather near the train,” says one witness. “The mob… requested that the karsevaks return the girl. But instead of returning the girl, they started closing their windows. This infuriated the mob…” The brawl had become a battle, with the karsevaks piling in with their swords and sticks, and a crowd now said to be 1,000-strong streaming in from the slum, bringing petrol, gas, rags – anything that would burn. Their gas cylinders broke the bars on the windows and exploded inside; the petrol bombs flew through and set the upholstery and the people trapped inside on fire. By the time that the police arrived in strength one hour later, there was nothing to be saved…”

Does this author think that 15 children were also drunk including babies and toddlers? What about the 25 women? All this nonsense and character assassination of the killed Hindus done by this newspaper is not even worth repudiating. This report is mostly based on fake mail but goes even lower by accusing the dead kar sewaks of being drunk, which even that mail did not say. But this report of The Independent was copied further by other newspapers, like Pakistan’s The Dawn on 22 March 2002. This malicious fake email circulated in the name of PTI reporter Anil Soni did the damage.

   This writer Peter Popham is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/peterpopham?lang=en

   The Independent’s report can be read here https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-hate-train-5361630.html This newspaper should be asked to apologize, and withdraw that article. Its email is [email protected] and complaints can be made here https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/user-policies

Frontline fortnightly which is a Communist magazine, which has slandered the dead Godhra victims, de-humanized them and defended their killers, too wrote in an article by Dionne Bunsha in its print edition dated 20 July 2002: “However, false news that kar sevaks kidnapped a young Muslim woman from the Godhra station platform was also circulated widely through e-mail.”

That email was denied by Anil Soni. Its contents were a bit too extreme. So after that, the Indian secularists and Islamists tried to blame the dead, but in a little less extreme way. There was an ‘independent fact-finding report’ by Kamal Mitra Chenoy, S.P.Shukla, K.S.Subramanian, and Achin Vanaik in April 2002 on the situation in Gujarat. This report was full of lies (e.g. It lied that the daughters of Ehsan Jafri had been raped and killed in the riots on 28 February 2002 while in reality, they were safe in the USA). This report was given in Outlook magazine.

Outlook reported:

“A Report To the Nation by An Independent Fact Finding Mission

The Sabarmati Express was late, not an uncommon event, and arrived in Godhra on platform number 1, almost five hours late at 7.43 AM instead of the scheduled time 2.55 AM… Some kar sewaks refused to pay for the tea and snacks and got into an altercation with the vendors. An old Ghanchi vendor, who is absconding, was ordered to shout pro-Rama slogans and his beard was reportedly pulled when he refused. [Our comment: If he was absconding, then how could anyone conclude that his beard was pulled? As a minimum, the vendor should make such a claim.] This was followed immediately by stone-throwing and physical assaults started. A Muslim lady Jaitinbibi was waiting for the train to Vadodara [Baroda] scheduled at around 8 AM along with her two young daughters, Sophiya and Shahidi. On seeing the fracas, they tried to leave the station. While doing this, they were stopped by a kar sewak who grabbed one of the teenage daughters Sophiya and tried to drag her inside the compartment, but contrary to later press reports and rumours failed to do so. Subsequently, this family left for Vadodora, but a journalist who spoke with them and has photocopies of their railway tickets confirmed the story to us…

…Apparently incensed by reports of the misbehaviour with members of their community by the kar sewaks and the molestation, even rumoured abduction, of a Muslim woman, a mob of up to 2,000 people allegedly of Ghanchis from Singal Faliya attacked the train with stones and firebombs. The kar sewaks of almost equal strength threw stones back. The main target of the Ghanchi mob appears to have been coach S6 which was badly burnt and in which 58 passengers, including 26 women, 12 children and 20 men died…”

This report slandered the dead Ram sewaks, falsely accused them of not paying for tea and snacks at the station for Rs 5, falsely accused the dead of pulling the beard of a vendor etc, and of trying to (unsuccessfully) kidnap a Muslim girl Sophia Sheikh. This same charge of the Ram sewaks attempting to abduct (unsuccessfully) this girl was repeated by Tehelka in October 2007.  

After the fake mail, they needed to find a girl who they could show as one who was ‘attempted to be kidnapped’. Sophia Sheikh did exist in reality.

The full-fledged Commission of Inquiry, the Nanavati Commission gave its report on 26 September 2008 and said that Godhra was a well-planned attack by Muslims. India Today reported in an article written on 27 September 2008:

“(The Nanavati Commission report says) A night before the incident, they (the conspirators) held a meeting in Aman Guest House opposite the station owned by an accused Razak Kurkur. Then they brought 140 litres of petrol from the petrol pump close by in seven plastic cans. The petrol was … kept it in the room of (Aman) guest house (in Godhra, which is opposite Railway Station) ….

The Nanavati Commission has discounted one of the main theories of a section of human rights activists that one of the Ramsevaks travelling on the Sabarmati train coming from Ayodhya had tried to abduct a Muslim girl called Sofiabanu Shaikh at Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002 morning. After interviewing Shaikh the Commission found several gaps in her story and concluded that she was parroting what perhaps had been fed to her a few days after the incident.

The report concluded that the story of a Muslim girl’s abduction was falsely spread on that morning of the unfortunate incident. This rumour was part of a conspiracy in order to collect a crowd to attack the train…”

This shows that such a girl indeed existed, and made such a claim of unsuccessfully attempted abduction, but she was not truthful in making it (and the other side was not alive to state its position). Nanavati Commission concluded that she had been parroting what was tutored to her a few days after the incident (i.e., after that fake email).

Even if any such attempt of abduction had been made by one or two kar sewaks, why would the mob have killed the entire coach’s 59 passengers, who had nothing to do with that, including old women screaming ‘Don’t kill us’, a total of 25 women and 15 children, including babies and toddlers? They would, at maximum have tried to recover the girl, and at the utmost, asked her to identify the abductors and targeted the abductors, instead of burning 59 passengers of the coach.

Those who claim ‘fake news’, ‘WhatsApp University’, and ‘Fact checking’ today actually spread such malicious lies insulting dead victims including 25 women and 15 children in 2002, based on a fake mail, despite the reporter concerned denying it totally, since it served their purpose of whitewashing the heinous crime of Muslims, and of painting the dead 59 Hindus as ‘victims of their own follies’.

[Sources: https://www.faithfreedom.org/indian-high-court-convicts-31-muslims-for-roasting-59-hindus-to-coal-in-2002-horrific-godhra-killings/ and https://www.opindia.com/2022/10/fake-mail-slandered-dead-godhra-victims-2002-copied-mainstream-media/ ]