The Sabarmati Report, which revisits the true story of the Gujarati Godhra train fire in 2002, was released in theaters today.
Today, the Sabarmati Report was released in India, starring Ridhi Dogra, Raashii Khanna, and Vikrant Massey. The Sabarmati Express event, which happened on the morning of February 27, 2002, close to the Godhra railway station in Gujarat, served as the inspiration for the movie.
The film, which was directed by Dheeraj Sarna, also emphasizes the dispute between Hindi and English. Let’s examine the true account of the Sabarmati Express train disaster as the film is released today.
THE REAL STORY
A horrific event in history—the burning of a Sabarmati Express coach close to Godhra, Gujarat—served as the inspiration for the film “The Sabarmati Report.” The majority of the passengers on the train were Hindu pilgrims returning from a religious event in Ayodhya on their way to Ahmedabad. Gujarat saw communal rioting as a result of the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 59 people.
The Sabarmati Express reached the Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, at around 7.45 a.m., as planned. The train traveled through a number of places, including Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, on its way from Muzaffarpur in Bihar to Ahmedabad in Gujarat.
Hundreds of karsevaks, or volunteers, who had been on a religious pilgrimage to Ayodhya, were on board the Sabarmati Express. The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a major force behind the Ram temple movement in the 1980s and early 1990s that resulted in the contentious demolition of the Babri Mosque in December 1992, was organizing a Purnahuti Yajna, and they were returning from it. About 1,700 people, including pilgrims and Karsevaks, boarded the train in Ahmedabad on February 25 in order to return to Gujarat. Early on February 27, the train reached Godhra station.
According to the driver’s later statement, the train stopped at the outer signal as it started to leave Godhra because the emergency chains were pulled multiple times. A group of about 2,000 protesters stormed the train, throwing stones at the compartments and burning four coaches, according to police accounts.
48 people were injured and 59 individuals, including 10 children and 27 women, died as a result of the fire. The attack was mostly directed at the S6 coach.
The next day, February 28, 2002, violent riots broke out throughout Gujarat in the wake of the Godhra train fire. The violence persisted for weeks, lasting two to three months, despite the state government’s early claims that it had the situation under control in three days.
To look into the occurrence, the state government formed a panel of investigation headed by Justice GT Nanavati and including Justice KG Shah. According to the commission’s report, pilgrims and Karsevaks returning from Ayodhya made up the majority of those killed in the fire.
Under the direction of Mohinder Singh Dahiya, the assistant director at the time, the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Gandhinagar conducted a separate investigation and came to the conclusion that the fire in coach S-6 was most likely started from within the coach. The FSL study indicated that the fire might have been caused by an insider’s action since it implied that a canister of liquid fuel had been spilled onto the coach from seat number 72.
Following a change in the federal government in 2004, a new commission of investigation was formed, with Justice UC Banerjee serving as its chair. ‘Accident’ was how the Banerjee Commission described the Godhra train fire in its 2006 report. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was established to look into the Godhra event and the riots that followed in Gujarat after the Supreme Court declared the commission’s report to be unconstitutional and unlawful.
During this time, Justice Shah died in 2008, and Justice Akshay Mehta took his position on the Nanavati Commission. According to the commission’s 2008 findings, the Godhra train fire was not an act of impromptu mob violence but rather a planned scheme.
Seven years after the Godhra train burning, the trial for individuals responsible started in June 2009. Two years later, 31 people were found guilty and 63 others were found not guilty by an Ahmedabad fast-track court. The trial court upheld the conclusions of the Nanavati Commission, claiming that the fire was the result of a planned plot rather than an incident of indiscriminate mob violence.
Of those found guilty of burning the Godhra train, 11 were given death sentences and 20 were given life sentences. The Gujarat High Court, however, upheld the acquittals and kept the life sentences for the remaining 11 prisoners while commuting the death sentences of the other 11 to life in prison in October 2023. All 31 of the people found guilty in the Godhra train burning case are currently serving life sentences as a result.
