Kolkata: Railway Minister Laloo Prasad today (June 16, 2004) said that he had opened the files relating to the Godhra massacre to find those responsible for the carnage and who 'benefited' from it.

"I have opened the Godhra files. The people of India, in fact of the entire world, should know what actually happened in Godhra," Prasad told reporters in Kolkata.

More than 70 people died when a coach of the Sabarmati Express was set on fire at the Godhra railway station in Gujarat in 2002.

The Railway Minister said that it needed to be ascertained whether the coach was actually set ablaze from outside or inside. "We must also find out who set the coach on fire and who benefited from the incident."

Stating that he was now studying the files, he said, "There are 10 to 15 files and I need to go through them before I can come to a conclusion."

Expressing satisfaction at the Railway Minister's move in opening the Godhra files, CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) MP Basudev Acharia said, "For the past two years, we have been demanding that the Godhra report be placed in Parliament. We have information that the petrol used to burn the coach had not been brought from outside -- it was inside the coach."

Acharia, who was chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Railways in the 13th Lok Sabha, said that the passenger manifest of the burnt coach should also be made public to ascertain whether those inside the coach were bonafide travellers.