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 man. But his article revealed the reality of the mail, 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 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.
Here is what the slanderous Independent article said:
… 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.
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’.
(The writer is the author of book “2002 Gujarat Riots: The True Story” which gives all details about the 2002 riots- Godhra and after, one of the admins of www.gujaratriots.com and one of the admins of the Twitter handle @gujaratriotscom)
