Decode Politics: Modi raises a report on 2002 Godhra train burning to attack Lalu, Congress. What was it?

While addressing an election rally in Bihar’s Darbhanga on May 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a reference to the Justice U C Banerjee Commission that had probed the Godhra train burning incident of 2002.

The PM said the then Railway Minister (Lalu Prasad) “acted in connivance with the Congress”, which headed the UPA-1 government at the Centre, to set free the accused in the train burning.

Without mentioning Lalu by name, Modi said: “When the kar sevaks were burnt alive in Godhra, the Railway Minister (Lalu Prasad) was the father of this shehzade (in an apparent reference to Tejashwi Yadav)… To save the accused, he appointed a committee headed by a Supreme Court judge… Its name was Ben-raji committee (the PM twisted the name Banerjee, apparently to indicate it was a compliant panel). Soniaben ka raaj tha… aur isiliye unhone Ben-raji committee banayi (It was the rule of Sonia Gandhi… and that is why they set up the Ben-raji committee)… They got a report written through him (Banerjee) declaring that those who burnt alive the 60 kar sevaks were innocent and should be set free.”

On February 27, 2002, 59 passengers, mostly kar sevaks who were part of the Ram Temple movement and returning from Ayodhya, died when the S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express they were in caught fire at the Godhra Railway Station. The incident sparked off the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.

In 2004, the Ministry of Railways, then under Lalu, set up a high-level committee under retired Supreme Court Justice Umesh Chandra Banerjee to investigate the fire. The committee was set up under Section 114 of the Railways Act 1989, which mandates an inquiry into a train accident “resulting in loss of human life or grievous hurt”.

The panel’s terms of reference