I am not surprised but certainly disappointed by the contents of the report submitted by the Nanavati-Mehta Judicial Commission, appointed by the Gujarat Government to probe the Godhra tragedy and the communal holocaust that followed it across the state.

While the ‘clean chit’ given by the Commission to Narendra Modi, members of his then council of Ministers and police officers was on expected lines given the Chief Minister’s track record in managing and manipulating facts, the assertions of a ‘pre-planned conspiracy’ by Muslims to set ablaze the Sabarmati Express is certain to further polarise the nation, already reeling under the impact of terrorist attacks and assault on the Christian community.

The clean chit given to the Hindutva poster boy Modi is in sharp contrast to the blatant attempts made to single out an entire community (as against mischief makers who could belong to any community) and hold it squarely responsible for the fire, which has been earlier concluded as an ‘accident’ by a Central Government appointed panel headed by Justice U C Banerjee.

The credibility of the present report is doubtful also in the light of the fact that the same Gujarat Government had in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court stated that the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh was a cold-blooded murder stage-managed in a fake encounter.

In fact, the Gujarat Government’s Counsel in the Supreme Court Sh K T S Tulsi had even threatened to resign if the Chief Minister did not apologise for his remarks justifying Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s fake encounter.

I wish to recall here that on February 28, 2002 itself soon after the train tragedy took place, I had urged the then Home Minister Sh L K Advani to take urgent steps to prevent any untoward incident. I even wrote to the then Prime Minister Sh Atal Behari Vajpayee twice, on 6th October 2002 and then again on 10th October 2002, expressing serious concern over the state Government’s attempts to “cover up” its shameless involvement in the state-sponsored brutal carnage by appointing a retired High Court Judge to ‘probe’ the incidents.

I even raised the issue during the subsequent debates in the Lok Sabha on the issue and demanded an impartial inquiry by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to inquire into the total failure of the state Government to protect its citizens and forcing them to live as refugees in their own country in inhuman conditions under the shadow of terror and fear.

Unfortunately, my pleas fell on deaf ears and neither the then Prime Minister nor his Deputy and current Prime Ministerial-aspirant of the BJP acknowledged my demands and the nation witnessed and hung its head in shame as the lumpen elements of the Sangh Parivar tore apart the fragile secular fabric.

This ‘clean chit’ is an affront to our cherished principle of equality before law and justice for all; it is an insult to our national motto of ‘Satyameva Jayate’.

I, therefore, demand the institution of two separate inquiries by sitting judges of the Supreme Court; one into all aspects of the Gujarat violence including the Godhra train fire as also a comprehensive probe into the systematic violence against Christians across the country and the involvement of the Sangh Parivar outfits and the BJP-run state Governments in it.

Let the Central Government establish its secular credentials by taking stringent action on the recommendations of the Sri Krishna Commission which inquired into the Mumbai riots.

The Government should also seriously ponder over the establishment of a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission to probe into all incidents of communal violence in the past and thereby restore the faith of all sections of the society, particularly the minorities, in our secular democratic system and thus bring back into the mainstream all alienated Indians. This is the only way out to heal the wounds and bridge the widening chasm in our pluralistic society.