NEW DELHI: Much finger-pointing and exchange of accusations on predictable lines followed the tabling of the Nanavati commission report on Thursday.

Nanavatis findings completely trashed an earlier report by justice UC Banerjee, who held himself from commenting.

Banerjee, heading a committee appointed by the railway ministry to inquire into the fire on the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, in which 59 people died, had said in his report the fire was accidental and ruled out any conspiracy to kill the kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya on the train.

"I have not seen the report. How can I comment on it?" he said, defending his own findings saying had the fire been a result of an attack from outside, the over a 100 passenger who escaped could not have managed it.

Banerjee said he had examined a large number of witnesses, including an income-tax officer, who submitted they crawled on the floor to get out of the burning coach.
While 250 people escaped to safety, 58 were asphyxiated due to thick smoke. The sequence of the fire was different. "This sequence could never have been in a petrol fire," he said.

The BJP, relishing the endorsement of its stand by Nanavati, said the report had finally brought out the truth railway minister Lalu Prasad had sought to subvert through the Banerjee committee. Party spokesman Prakash Javdekar, calling the Banrejee committee findings "ill conceived, ill prepared and politically motivated", said it was not based on exhaustive inquiry like the Nanavati commissions report.

BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley, anticipating the Congress reaction, said the party had lately developed an ethos of defending the accused in blasts and train burning. "The same mistake would be repeated here. You will see the shifting of goal posts on the definition of secularism. Defending Godhra and those who burnt the train would be done." This is the kind of thing that is bringing secularism a bad name, he said.

The Congress and its allies, predictably, trashed the Nanavati report. "We are not surprised by the report. We have always had doubts about its impartiality, it was after all set up by the prime accused. The entire purpose was to give a clean chit to (Gujarat chief minister Narendra) Modi," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.

Raising doubts about the credibility of the commission, Singhvi said it could have been in the fitness of things if the commission was appointed from outside the state.

"The supreme courts decision to order that all such cases be tried outside the state itself is a complete vote of no-confidence on the impartiality of the judicial system in the state," Singhvi said.

The Congress found support from RJD chief and railway minister Lalu Prasad, who said, "That (Banerjee) report was presented to parliament and was debated threadbare. The whole world knows that Narendra Modi is the fountainhead of communalism in the country."

The CPI(M) said the report was trying to justify the "action-reaction" theory. "Giving the report in piece-meal points a needle of suspicion that the report is trying to justify the action-reaction theory," politburo member Sitaram Yechury said.

Source : DNA