Godhra riots: How a delayed train derailed 9 cops' careers

It was one of the many ordinary nights a pack of nine policemen from Gujarat Railway Police (GRP) thought would pass without any notice. They were part of a special squad whose duty was to patrol the Bhopal-Rajkot Express train from Ahmedabad to Dahod station and return by Sabarmati Express. The return train, Sabarmati Express, was perennially late and after hours of waiting, they boarded a different train and returned home.

The job of the pack was to keep passengers safe from gangs who used to rob them of their valuables by drugging them. There was no extraordinary event that the squad had witnessed in nearly a year of its formation except on the night of February 26, 2002, which not only derailed their career for good but also changed the social and political landscape of Gujarat.

As per their assignment, the squad had left Ahmedabad on the Bhopal-Rajkot Express at 6:55 PM and reached Dahod at 12:07 AM on February 27, 2002. They waited for the Sabarmati Express train, which was supposed to arrive 31 minutes later at 12:38 AM. Hours passed and yet there was no sign of the ill-fated train. At 4:45 AM, the nine policemen boarded another train, Shanti Express, and returned to Ahmedabad. They reported to their station and went home.

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"It must have been around 10 AM when I switched on my TV and was dumbstruck. The news flashed that over 50 passengers of Sabarmati Express train at Godhra station (next to Dahod was Godhra station), were killed in the fire. It was the same train that I and eight other members of our squad were supposed to board but instead came back in Shanti Express. I rushed to our police station at Ahmedabad railway station to get details," said Vinod Kalal, one of the nine members, while giving blurry details of that fateful night.

The Sabarmati Express train, originating from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, was to arrive at Godhra station at 2:55 AM at platform 1. Instead, it arrived at 7.40 AM, after a record delay. Five minutes later, it departed for the next station, Vadodara. But, incidents of chain pullings were reported from several coaches and could start again at 7:55 AM. It was stopped again near Cabin "A", a little further from the station and across Signal Falia, a Muslim dominated locality.

It was here that, according to court documents, a mob of "900 to 1000 people pelted stones, threw burning bags inside the coach S-6, sprinkled petrol from outside and set it on fire, killing 58 people on the spot" in the ghastly attack. Another passenger died in the hospital, taking the toll to 59. Hours later, as the word spread, communal riots broke out in many parts of the state, killing hundreds of people, mostly from Muslim community in what is now known as post-Godhra riots.

Nine years later in 2011, a special trial court convicted 31 individuals, out of which 11 were sentenced to death while the remaining 20 were awarded life imprisonment. The court acquitted 63 others. In 2017, while deciding an appeal, the Gujarat High Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment and upheld the sentencing of 20 others to life.

However, for the pack of nine policemen, the ordeal is far from over as their case is yet to be decided by the court.

A month after the incident, the state government suspended all the nine policemen on the ground of being "careless and negligent". The suspension order signed by the then Superintendent of Police, J K Bhatt, Western Railway, Vadodara, read, "had they boarded the Sabarmati Express train, they could have prevented the serious offence." Three years later, they were dismissed. Their appeals were rejected and subsequently they filed an appeal in 2007 in the high court where it remains pending.

Their squad — named "Special Train Patrolling" — was formed in 2001 to guard the passengers from the gangs who used to rob them by offering them drinks or food laced with sedatives that would make them sleep or even kill. The decision had been taken in view of rising crime in running trains in those days. Some of the cases reported that year included a double murder in a holiday special train, a case of loot in Bareilly-Gandhidham train and cases of bag liftings in Shatabdi and Rajdhani Express trains.

"Our only so-called negligence was that we boarded another train instead of the Sabarmati Express. But, it was the unwritten norm as trains would always get late and the 12-hour duty shift would get over at the station itself. There was an oral instruction from the Superintendent of Police which said that in case of delay, we were permitted to catch the next train. There are documents showing that squad members before us were doing the same thing, that is in case of delay they would take different trains," Kalal told DH on Saturday at his home in Ahmedabad. He added that it was only after a month of the incident, the railway police issued an order stating that “squad members were directed to return in the same train they had been assigned.”

53-year-old Kalal, originally from Rajkot, had served seven years as a constable when the train carnage happened and was removed. He now works as a plumber in Ahmedabad. He said that two policemen Jabir Hussain Rasul Miyan and Gulabsinh Devusinh Jhala, both head constables, passed away during the pendency. Others are working as auto-rickshaw drivers or farm labourers. Nathabhai D Bhabhi, 63, had served 25 years in GRP when he was dismissed. "I work as a farm labourer and somehow manage to survive. We were only following what our predecessor had done and yet we were removed from service," he said by phone from Khedbrahma in Sabarkantha district.

When asked if their presence in the train would have changed anything, he said, "Out of nine members, four including me were in plainclothes. Our job was to travel in the general compartment and disguise like passengers. When the government couldn't do anything despite having resources like intelligence, RAF and other forces, what could four armless constables have done in that frenzy." Five other squad members were to patrol throughout the train in uniform and only two of them had .303 rifles.

As the nine former cops, all low-rank cops, await the hearing next month, one of their lawyers happens to be ex-IPS officer Rahul Sharma. Incidentally, it was Sharma who had passed an order forming the statewide special squad in 2001 when he was posted as Superintendent of Police, Western Railways in Vadodara. Sharma is assisting senior lawyer Shalin Mehta who took over the case following the death of noted lawyer and activist Mukul Sinha.

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