New Delhi: Terming it as "most extensive, exhaustive and scientific", the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday welcomed the Justice (retd) Nanavati Commission's report, which found that the train burning tragedy at Godhra in 2002 was a well-planned conspiracy.
“Justice Nanavati's report is the most extensive, exhaustive and scientific report on the burning of Sabarmati Express train,” said BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar.
He said that this will put an end to all theories which claim the burning of the train was an accident and that the fire broke out from inside.
“If the fire started from inside, people could have jumped out. There was an attack from the outside,” added Javadekar.
The Nanavati Commission's first report, tabled in the Gujarat assembly on Thursday, contradicts the report by the Justice (retd) U C Banerjee's investigation committee, set up by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, which held that the fire was accidental.
Javadekar said that it was only on the insistence of Lalu Prasad that the Banerjee Committee's report was prepared in a hurry ahead of Assembly Elections in Bihar.
“The report was ill-prepared and politically motivated,” added Javadekar.
Fifty-nine people were burnt alive in the S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express when a violent mob set ablaze two coaches at the Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002.
Many of them were Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists returning after a campaign in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
The gruesome tragedy led to communal violence across the state for over a week in which 1,169 people, a majority of them Muslims, were killed, according to official figures.
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