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February 28, 2002
GODHRA, India -- Muslim attackers armed with stones and kerosene descended on a train carrying hundreds of Hindu nationalists Wednesday, setting fire to four cars and killing 57 people.
Fourteen of the dead were children and 43 other people were injured, many critically, when a mob attacked the train as it pulled out of Godhra shortly after 6:30 a.m., Gujarat state officials said.
Fearing the attack would ignite sectarian riots, Indian officials stepped up security across this vast, religiously divided nation. The prime minister urged Hindus not to retaliate.
The nationalists belonged to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, a group seeking to build a temple at the disputed holy site of Ayodhya. Ten years ago, fighting between Muslims and Hindus over Ayodhya killed 2,000 people.
Most of the 2,500 Hindu activists on board the Sabarmati Express were returning from Ayodhya and were bound for Ahmadabad, 95 miles to the south.
State officials and witnesses said the Muslims appeared incensed by Hindu chanting on the railroad platform in Godhra.
The cars they destroyed were detached, and the train continued on to Vadodara, 60 miles to the south. There, a Hindu crowd that had gathered at the station fatally stabbed a man as he got off the train, and several other people were beaten with sticks.
Later Wednesday in Godhra, a 17-year-old boy was killed when police fired shots and tear gas to disperse mobs looting shops and setting them on fire.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called on Hindu nationalists not to retaliate. "We need to protect Indian brotherhood at every cost," said Vajpayee, who canceled a trip to Australia for a Commonwealth summit after the attack.
Uttar Pradesh state officials said 3,000 paramilitary troops were sent to Ayodhya to help police seal off the town. Only residents with passes were allowed in.
Most of Godhra was placed under curfew Wednesday night.
Gujarat Home Minister Gordhan Zadaphia said that security was tightened in Muslim areas of the state and that police were ordered to shoot on sight to prevent rioting.
"It is clear from the statements of survivors that the attack was carried out by local people belonging to the Muslim community and, for this reason, because of chances of retaliation, we have already instructed our police officers to arrange special security cover for the Muslim population," Zadaphia said.
The World Hindu Council alleged that the Godhra attackers were retaliating for its plans to build a temple in Ayodhya. Hindus razed a 16th century Muslim mosque at the site a decade ago, sparking the deadly nationwide riots that killed more than 2,000 people.
The council called a statewide general strike today. "The Muslim mob chose the compartments in which the volunteers were in," said Jaideep Patel, joint secretary of the council. "Once they identified three compartments in which there were about 160 volunteers, they threw containers of kerosene and petrol inside."
More than 20,000 Hindu activists had gathered in Ayodhya, which lies 345 miles east of New Delhi, since the council announced it would break ground on a temple by March 15 in defiance of court orders banning construction at the disputed site.