Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 19, 2005
What is Justice UC Banerjee trying
to suggest? Does he want us to believe that on February 27, 2002, kar sevaks
inside Coaches S-6 and S-7 of Sabarmati Express developed a collective
suicidal urge and immolated themselves? Is Justice Banerjee of the view
that the action of the "self-immolating" kar sevaks of Godhra should be
a subject for anthropological study, similar to the birds of Jatinga in
North Cachar who fly to their deaths every year in one of nature's most
abiding mysteries? If his bizarre interim report on the burning alive of
57 kar sevaks were taken to its logical conclusion, fatal, mass self-hypnosis
would appear to be the only explanation.
He has, no doubt, sought to soften
the blow by calling it an accident. Was it also an accident, Mr Banerjee,
that over 1,000 Godhra residents of a particular community gathered just
outside the railway station at a place called Signal Falia that day and
threw stones into the carriages breaking every glass pane, probably facilitating
the propulsion of an inflammatory object from outside? The accident must
be truly mysterious as the ex-Supreme Court judge, handpicked by self-styled
secular messiah Lalu Yadav to "probe" the carnage, has ruled out electric
short-circuit as probable cause of the fire.
We are left in no doubt that Justice
Banerjee is an honourable man. So what if he chooses to go public with
his "findings" just 15 days before the first round of voting in Bihar?
So what, if the Minister who sponsored the inquiry promptly holds a news
conference to give out more details to the media than the ex-judge is willing
to reveal? So what, if the honourable former member of the country's highest
judiciary refuses to submit himself to questions from the media at his
Press conference? Those who are raising fingers at the veracity of the
report and questioning the timing of its publication must be truly unmindful
of judicial honour.
However, we are bewildered by the
direct contradiction of Justice Banerjee's "findings" by the Special Investigating
Team probing the carnage. Contrary to the mysterious accident theory propounded
by the ex-judge, investigators on the ground told the Nanavati-Shah Commission
that, in fact, confessional statements of the Godhra accused pointed to
a major conspiracy involving terrorists.
Mr Lalu Yadav's unilateral and controversial
decision to order a Railway Ministry probe into the incident when another
judicial commission was at work already, had been questioned by many for
being a politically motivated exercise. This newspaper had wondered whether
the Lalu-sponsored commission's report would be pre-scripted to serve the
wily Bihar leader's electoral machinations. Some had even suggested that
it would be inappropriate for any past or present judge to agree to serve
on Mr Yadav's commission when other fellow retired judges were already
on the job.
But none of this deterred the honourable
Mr Banerjee who promptly responded to the scam tainted RJD supremo's call.
The "findings" of the commission have confirmed all apprehensions. The
heartening aspect, however, is the ridicule with which the report has been
greeted by almost everybody. Even the Congress is muted in Mr Banerjee's
praise, embarrassed, no doubt, by the brazen political mileage being derived
from it by its somewhere-ally, somewhere-rival UPA partner. From Mr Lalu
Yadav and his ilk one expected no better. But we believed there was something
called judicial conscience that would stop short of making fun of Godhra
victims and their families. Maybe that was a misplaced expectation.
