Friday, April 7 2006 10:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Ahmedabad: Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi yesterday (Apr 6, 2006) alleged that the Justice U C Banerjee report on the fire on Sabarmati Express train in Godhra was aimed at setting the perpetrators in the train carnage case free.

Speaking at a function organised in Vasna locality to welcome L K Advani's `Bharat Suraksha Yatra', Modi said, "There is a confusion surrounding Justice U C Banerjee Committee. No one knows whether it is a Commission or a Committee." "The Prime minister says it is a Committee, while others say it is a commission. This confusion has deliberately been created," Modi alleged.

"Both the Commission and its report is actually meant to save the accused in the Godhra train burning incident," he claimed.

Modi said the many innocent people were killed in the Sabarmati train which was set afire on February 27, 2002. "The accused were arrested under POTA, a law which was a potent weapon to counter terrorism," Modi said.

"These accused were not given bail inspite to the various legal battle fought for over two-and-a-half year in Gujarat High Court and Supreme Court," he added.

Modi said when the UPA goverment came to power they removed POTA and set up a POTA review committee which held that the imposition of POTA in the Godhra case was not proper.

The chief minister said Gujarat had passed GUJCOC Bill (Gujarat Control of Organised Crime) two years back and had sent it to the UPA government for approval.

"The home ministry have not moved the files relating to the Bill," Modi alleged adding that Gujarat was being targeted by the Union government when similar bills were in existing in other states.

He criticised the move of the Kerala Assembly which according to him recently moved a resolution to free Abdul Nazar Madani who was the architect of the Coimbatore suicide bombings during L K Advani's visit to the city a few years back.

"If such a thing had happened in Gujarat, then they would have pulled our hairs out", Modi remarked adding that the move to free a terrorist was a combined move of the CPI and the Congress.

"Vote-bank politics and UPA government's minority appeasement policies and increasing incidents of terrorism in the country has forced 80-year-old Advaniji to embark upon another yatra so late in life," he added.