In April, this column had raised certain questions. They remain unanswered. Why did the government, immediately after the Godhra tragedy, state that the ISI had planned it, and why months later did it say it had not? How could the riots be pre-planned, for which considerable evidence has been adduced, while the event that provoked them was not? Why can't the government furnish the names and identities of the victims?
After these questions were raised, the mystery deepened. The Ahmedabad-based Forensic Science Laboratory proved that the railway carriage was set afire from inside. The outside doors of the burnt bogie were locked. The arsonists therefore could only have entered the compartment through the corridor from the adjoining bogie. How did a Muslim mob pass through unprotesting kar sevaks and burn alive inmates of the adjoining bogie?
The Eastern Railway bifurcation dispute between Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar uncovered more dirt. Mamata claimed that she had seen the forensic report. She accused Nitish of holding back the passenger list to curry favour with the BJP . In response, Nitish disclosed before Parliament that only recently did the investigators ask his ministry for the reserved passenger list. Till today the reserved passengers have not been questioned!
Fifty-eight passengers died at Godhra. Only four among them were reserved passengers. Nineteen remained unidentified. Thirty-five charred non-reserved passengers, therefore, were 'identified' by the government.
Who were they?
We still don't know this six months after the tragedy.
Is this investigation or farce? Never mind the government, what about the media? Editors have armies of reporters under them. Can't they track down reserved passengers and ask them how and why they were not in the carriage when it was burnt? Or is the truth too frightening to confront?
Circumstantial evidence suggests the possibility of foreign-funded saboteurs having infiltrated the Sangh parivar to act as enemies of the state. If investigations bear this out, these infiltrators must be hunted, exposed and punished. They could be the greatest threat to national security.
If an event lays bare
An enemy who can slay,
Pretend he's not there,
He might go away!
