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A planned assault, says report

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi APRIL 10. The Godhra attack was used as a trigger to justify the " calculated and planned assault'' on Muslims in Gujarat that followed it, according to an independent report into the Gujarat carnage.

The report said that Godhra was a typical communal riot in which some provocation by violent elements of one community often leads to a terrible and unjustified reaction by their counterparts in the other community.

The preparation of lists of Muslim targets, the storage of incendiary materials (such as LPG cylinders), and the availability of transport to move large numbers of people and materials, however, "could only have been organised well in advance of the `trigger' provided by the Godhra tragedy.''

The report, " The Gujarat Carnage 2002: A Report to the Nation'' is the result of a fact-finding mission to Godhra and Ahmedabad, undertaken by Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University, S. P. Shukla, former Finance Secretary to the Government of India, K. S. Subramanian, former Director General of Police, Tripura and Achin Vanaik, Visiting Professor, Jamia Milia Islamia.

They found that "intelligence failure'', was the primary cause of the Godhra violence. Prior information about the movement of kar sevaks, would have given the police a chance to beef up security to prevent any possible communal flare-up.

The lack of information was because "regular surveillance on the activities of the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal has been dropped'' since the BJP came to power.

The report said that the "connecting link'' between the riots in Godhra and mayhem that followed was provided by the VHP's call for a State-wide bandh on the following day.

The report was also critical of the police role, saying that many officers have not only failed in their duties but also actively colluded with the mobs. The decision-making powers have been transferred from the police to the Sangh Parivar, the report said.

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