Leena Misra/TNN
 
Ahmedabad, Sep 27: Quite unbelievably, the Godhra commission feels Naroda-Patia, Gulbarg Society, Best Bakery and other massacres across Gujarat in February-March 2002 had nothing to do with the burning of S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002.

Part-I of Nanavati-Mehta Commission report tabled in Gujarat Assembly on Thursday has an innocuous paragraph which states that the commission had completed scrutiny of papers on post-Godhra riots, but did "not find anything therein establishing any connection between them and the burning of S-6 of Sabarmati Express train at Godhra".

Obviously Justice Nanavati has treated Gujarat riots differently than the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, which, he clearly claims, were provoked by the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

With his latest report, he not only negates Newton's third law of action-reaction, which CM Narendra Modi himself cited to describe post-Godhra riots in 2002, but also controverts evidence placed before the commission. Several affidavits filed before the commission by government and police officials have referred to the riots as a fallout of Godhra episode.

Not only that, several chargesheets filed in the POTA court in Godhra and post-Godhra cases, which the commission has taken as evidence, talk about Godhra killings of 59 kar sevaks as having provoked the reprisals against Muslims the very next day and onwards. Evidence provided by the then intelligence chief RB Sreekumar had gone to the extent of stating that Modi wished that "Hindus be allowed to vent their anger".

There is also ample evidence in intelligence reports submitted as affidavits, of VHP and Bajrang Dal giving a Gujarat bandh call on February 28 and a Bharat bandh call on March 1, 2002, to protest the killings of Ram sevaks returning from Ayodhya by Sabarmati Express. These were the days when the bulk of killings took place.

The Commission also has the Tehelka tapes, which contain confessions of the perpetrators bragging of their murders. "It is quite obvious there was a provocation. Now with the Nanavati report isolating the two events, one wonders what the second report will cite as the motive behind the massacre that followed Godhra," said a police officer.