"The fire was widely understood to have been started by Muslims, although this has never been conclusively proven"[1]
"On February 27, the VHP resolved to begin construction of the Ram Temple. To celebrate the occasion, thousands of karsevaks—Hindu volunteers—converged at the site, including many from Gujarat. Returning back to Ahmedabad, around 2,000 boarded the Sabarmati Express train. As the train reached Godhra railway station in Gujarat, on the morning of February 27, a fierce fire engulfed one coach of the train. The fire claimed fifty-nine lives, mainly karsevaks. Without any investigation, the BJP government immediately issued a press release calling the fire a “pre-planned terrorist attack”; subsequently the government labeled it “inhuman genocide” or “inhuman carnage.”26 In a state where trivial incidents had previously triggered large-scale violence, this was a trigger of immense magnitude, its impact further heightened by inflammatory headlines in the vernacular press. Later investigation refuted the claim of terrorism. The central government’s Ministry of Railways concluded that the fire was accidental.27 Alternatively, and more plausibly, the incident began with an altercation between the karsevaks and Muslim tea vendors at the station, and then escalated when passengers attempted to abduct a Muslim girl; a Muslim crowd then attacked the train.28"[2]
"there are competing versions as to how exactly the fire started in the train bogies. While the Nanavati commission of inquiry (NCI) instated soon after the Gujarat pogrom and completed in 2008 declared that the fire in the train bogies was a premeditated act by Muslim conspirators, the Banerjee commission instated in 2004 questioned the theory of premeditation and called the incident an accident. The latter commission had been ruled illegal by the Gujarat High court in 2006. Both commissions of inquiry are regularly derided as "politically motivated" by respective opposing political constituencies. Uncertainties surrounding the incident remain."[3]Dlv999 (talk) 22:34, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
After the train carrying Hindu pilgrims was torched, allegedly by a Muslim mob.....[4]
Several theories circulate as to who set the train on fire. The dominant version is that following an altercation between the Hindu activists and a Muslim tea seller on the Godhra railway platform, and possibly the attempted molestation of the tea seller’s young daughter, a Muslim mob set the train on fire. Fifty-eight people were killed, many of them women and children. The activists were returning from Ayodhya, a north Indian town, where they supported a campaign led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and allied organisations, to construct a temple of the Hindu God Ram on the site of the mosque destroyed by Hindu militants in 1992. The VHP claims that the mosque was built on a site that was the birthplace of Ram.[5]
"Unless later research disproves the proposition, the existing reports give us every reason to believe the riots in Gujarat were actually full-blooded pogroms. Two common reference sources define pogrom as follows:
An organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews. (www.dictionary.com)
A mob attack, either approved or condoned by authorities, against the persons and property of a religious, racial, or national minority. (www.britanica.com)
After the train was torched, the state made no attemot to preven, or stop, revenge killings. State police looked the other way, as gangs murdered scores of Muslims with remarkable ease. 7 The statements of NGOs most closely associated with Gujarat state government, run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), openly supported anti-Muslim violence. According to the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the BJP government did what was absolutely necessary: namely, allow Hindu retaliation against the Muslims, including those who had nothing to do with the mob that had originally torched the train in Ghodhra.8[4]
^Khanna, Renu (2008). "Communal Violence in Gujarat, India: Impact of Sexual Violence and Responsibilities of the Health Care System". Reproductive Health Matters. 16 (31): 142–152. doi:10.1016/S0968-8080(08)31357-3. PMID18513616.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
