The Gujarat High Court awarded life sentence to Farooq Bhana and Imran Sheru for their role as conspirators in the burning of two coaches of the Sabarmati Express on 27 February 2002. The court acquitted three others- Hussain Suleman Mohan, Kasam Bhamedi and Faruk Dhantiya- while eight others are still out of the reach of law.
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Farooq Bhana, was arrested in 2016 near Godhra. The police described him as the key conspirator in the burning of Sabarmati Express. According to FIR, he was charged with conspiracy to torch the S-6 coach during a meeting with other accused at the Aman Guest House near Godhra Railway Station. JR Mothaliya, member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the case, said that Farooq Bhana was involved in the “entire planning, right from the beginning till the end”. Earlier in 2011, SIT court had awarded punishment to 31 persons involved in the case. The court awarded 11 convicts with capital punishment, while 20 others were awarded life-term in jail. However, in 2017, the Gujarat High Court converted the death sentence of 11 convicts into life imprisonment and also upheld life sentence of 20 convicts.
In the infamous Godhara incident, Fifty-nine karsevaks were burnt alive. Three days of statewide communal violence followed after the burning of Sabarmati Express in Godhra. According to official figures, the riots resulted in the deaths of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus. 2,500 people were injured non-fatally, and 223 more were reported missing.
Those 59 people were murdered in the worst way possible by a jihadi mob that had planned the whole thing beforehand. They made sure that the train was surrounded, with zero chance of anyone escaping. The mob attacked the train and after heavy stone pelting, set four coaches of the train on fire, roasting 59 men, women and children alive in the most gruesome manner only because they were Hindus returning from kar seva in Ayodhya. Because they were polytheist kafirs, and in the eyes of believers, worse than dogs, as they volunteered to go for building the foundation of Ram Mandir where the invasive Babri Masjid once stood (on Ram janmabhoomi ruins). You can’t assemble thousands of people holding inflammable material in a matter of few hours; it needs meticulous and calculated planning. The forensic lab report which came out later stated that 60 litres of inflammable liquid had been poured into the coach S-6 of the train.
But the secular brigade wants to whitewash the massacre at Godhra as if never happened. From judicial probes that stated that the fire was lighted from inside the coach (?) to NGOs tutoring and creating “witnesses” out of thin air to give statements of “foetuses torn out of pregnant women”, “mass graves”, “Modi abusing Jafri (who’s own anti Hindu activities are conveniently whitewashed) and giving instructions to kill him”, “Muslims being terrified to exist in India” to various smear campaigns against Narendra Modi and the Gujarat government, they left no stone unturned to bring him down. Unfortunately for them, he won the 2002 elections again, and yet again in 2007 and 2012. The smear campaign did not end in 2012.
But 14 years later, the tides turned. Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India. And the Congress-NGO-Media nexus built around 2002 riots was rattled. PM Modi attacked the cabal dutifully by drying their coffers.