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Journalism of Courage
With a special court convicting 31 people in the Godhra train burning case,the BJP on Tuesday argued that the verdict has vindicated its stand that there was a conspiracy behind the incident.
The party utilised the verdict to target the UPA government on account of the fact that the U C Banerjee committee appointed by UPA I to probe the incident had concluded that the fire was accidental. The judgment vindicates our stand that they (kar sevaks) were burnt to death under a conspiracy. It re-establishes the conspiracy theory, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj said. The court has accepted that this was a culmination of a conspiracy.
The BJP alleged that the UPA government at the Centre had tried to cover up the entire episode and the verdict has exposed that design.
The theory propagated by the government and some NGOs has been proved wrong with the court saying there was a conspiracy…. One man (Banerjee) gave a clean chit but the court has not accepted this. The attempts to rubbish the fact of conspiracy has been defeated, BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.
The party claimed that the court has accepted that the attack was planned in a room and petrol was bought to set the train on fire. BJP chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad there were elements who were trying to belittle the issue while some politicians had tried to abuse law and justice.
Riots blot on democracy
The Congress on Tuesday refused to comment on the Godhra train carnage verdict maintaining that it was not aware of the contents of the judgment even as party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said the Congress holds Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his government responsible for state-sponsored genocide.
In political sense,whatever the judgment… the communal violence that erupted in Gujarat remained a blot on democracy. It is a blot on the record of Narendra Modi for which he will always have to answer to the people of the nation, she said.
On BJPs contention that the judgment vindicated its stand that the train had been set on fire from outside,she said,It still does not take away the fact that Modi and his government were responsible for the riots that took place post the train carnage.
