Spot investigation report No.2 regarding CR No. 9/2002.
Godhra Railway Police Station
A team of forensic experts had visited the place of
offence on 3/5/2002 in which along with the under signed, Shri AN Joshi,
Scientific Officer, Ahmedabad was included. In order to recreate the real
picture of how the offence was committed on the day of incident, one coach
of the train was kept on the same spot. With the help of different types
of containers experimental demonstrations were also carried out by using
liquids inside the said coach. On the basis of which the following
conclusions were made.
1. It was found that the height of the window of
the coach was around 7 ft. from the ground at the place. Under this
circumstance, it was not possible to throw any inflammable fluid inside
from outside the coach from any bucket or carboy, because by doing this,
most of the fluid was getting thrown outside. At the place of the
incidents there was one heap of grit of three feet height at a distance of
around 14-ft. in the southern side of the coach. Water was thrown on the
windows of the coach with the help of bucket standing on the top of the
said heap, in that case only about 10 to 15% of the water went inside and
the rest of the quantity was spilled outside itself. Thus if the
inflammable fluid is thrown from outside then major part of it would fall
around the track outside and catch fire and cause damage to the outer part
of bottom side of the coach. But after examination of the coach and the
track, no effect was found of the fire on bottom side below the windows of
the coach. By taking in to consideration this fact and also the burning
pattern of the outer side of the coach, a conclusion can be drawn that no
inflammable fluid had been thrown inside from outside of the coach.
2. There also appears to be no possibility that any
inflammable liquid was thrown through the door of the bogie.
3. By standing in the passage between the
compartment of the bogey and the northern side door of the eastern side of
the bogie, water was poured towards the western side from a container with
a wide mouth like a bucket; in that case most part of the bogie was
covered with 60 liters of water. By pouring the water in this manner, the
water went only towards the West and no part of it came out of the door
nor did it go towards the latrine side.
4. On the basis of the above experimental
demonstration such a conclusion can be drawn that 60 liters of inflammable
liquid was poured towards the western side by using a wide mouthed
container by standing on the passage between the northern side door of the
eastern side of the S-6 coach and the compartment of seat No. 72 and coach
was set on fire immediately thereafter. If the period after the train had
started from Godhra Railway Station, intensity of fire, the degree of burn
of the objects that were inside the bogie etc. are taken into account, it
can also be concluded that a large quantity (around 60 liters) of highly
inflammable fluid was used to set the aforesaid fire and that the fire had
spread very rapidly.
Spot investigation report No. 1 regarding CR No.
9/2/2002.
Godhra Railway Police Station
The forensic experts had visited the place of offence
on 1/5/2002. In the team of the experts along with the undersigned, the
other experts were Shri AR Vaghela, Scientific Officer, Vadodara, Shri
Yogesh Patel, Scientific Officer (Mobile), Panchmahal and Shri SI Desai,
Photographer, Surat. The experts have made detailed investigation of the
burnt down S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express train. The said coach was
kept in the yard of Godhra railway station. The observations made on the
basis of the informations learnt by the detailed examination of the coach
are as under.
1. A large number of hit marks were observed on the
outer part of the southern side of the burnt out S-6 coach which were due
to stones. Apart from this a large number of stones were found scattered
inside the coach and similarly glass pieces were also seen. It was found
that the said glass pieces were of the windows. From these observations it
is possible to say that there was large scale stone pelting on the coach
from outside and the glasses of the southern side was primarily broken due
to stone throwing and the glass of the northern side were broken due to
the heat of the fire.
2. From the condition of the colour on the door of
the coach, the burning pattern, condition of the hand lock, the marks of
the melting Aluminum strips of the frame of the window etc. it can be
established that both the east-west doors of the northern side of the
coach and similarly the eastern door of the southern side, thus a total of
three doors were opened at the time of the incident of fire and the door
in the west direction of the southern side was closed.
3. Out of the windows in the southern side, one rod
of one of the windows was found to be broken due to heat. As the height of
the lower part of the window was at the height of more than 7 ft. from the
ground, it negates the possibility of force on the rod from window side.
Further it was not found that any instrument was used to bend the rod.
Thus, it becomes clear that the rod was attempted to be broken by the use
of force from inside. It appears that the other rods had become loose due
to the melting of joints due to heat.
4. By observing the burning pattern inside the
coach, its degree, the depth and the eligatering pattern on the floor, it
appears that the fire has spread inside the coach very rapidly. Further,
by observing the intensity of the eligatering pattern on the floor, it
appears that the fire has started from the eastern side of the coach and
thereafter spread towards western side rapidly. Further, it appears that
the intensity and proportion of the burning of the objects inside the
coach was very high, up to around 80% part of the east to west side
whereas in the 20% part, the intensity of burning was less in comparison
with 80% part.
5. No sign was observed of the use of any corrosive
fluid like acid in the said fire.
6. By observing the condition of the frames of the
windows of the coach it appears that all the windows of the coach were
closed during the time of the fire.