Godhra

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A report from islamonline.net in october 2002.. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rolleyes.gif' /><!--endemo-->

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/20...article30.shtml

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By IOL South Asia Correspondent

NEW DELHI, October 15 (IslamOnline) - More evidence has now emerged to show that the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogroms were preplanned. Indian daily Asian Age Tuesday, October 15, quoted leading social activist Shabnam Hashmi, that strikingly similar combustible chemicals, both heavy-to-medium petroleum distillates, were used to burn the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra and later during the Naroda Patiya massacre.

The train tragedy on February 27 this year was used by Hindu extremists to burn thousands of Muslims alive, loot and burn their houses, shops and factories and drive over a hundred thousand refugees to relief camps where some of them still live.

The “riots” which continued unabated for the next two months, with official support, have still not fully died down. Every now and then there are fresh incidents of stabbing and burning of houses. Many refugees are still prevented from going back to their villages which now have been proclaimed “Muslim-free.”

<b>Ms Hashmi, secretary of Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, made findings of California-based testing laboratory, Technical Support Services, public in Ahmedabad on Monday. All ignitable liquids were confirmed by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy, according to the report.</b>

Ms Hashmi demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the Godhra train incident and post-Godhra riots, saying, “there is a striking similarity between the analysis of the sample taken from S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express and Naroda Patiya.”

<b>“Both the samples tested showed trace levels of a heavy petroleum distillate consistent with diesel fuel or a fuel oil,” she emphasized.</b>

<b>Ms Hashmi said she had collected samples from the two places and sent them to the California-based forensic agency, which in its report said “petroleum distillates” were used in both the incidents. “The findings definitely raise some questions,” she added.</b>

Ms Hashmi stressed that perhaps the “official” version that the S-6 coach had been set on fire as a pre-planned conspiracy by Muslim fundamentalists was cooked up. She added that the fact was further corroborated by reports in some national dailies that most of the karsevaks (Hindu volunteers) had safely reached their homes.

Serious doubts were raised about the “Muslim conspiracy” when an official report by Gujarat state’s Forensic Science Laboratory indicated that the fire was ignited from inside the coach using 60 litres of petrol stored inside.

<b>Ms Hashmi said she would courier a copy of the report from Technical Support Services’ chemical laboratory manager David J. Brien to the judicial commission probing the Godhra mayhem.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->