New Delhi: The double standards and hypocrisy of Indian opposition parties, who love to be called the secular brigade, came to the fore once again in Rajya Sabha.
During the proceedings in the Upper House on Wednesday, April 6, when the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill was being discussed, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said there was “an attempt” to give the Godhra train carnage a “different angle.”
“There is a judgement of the Supreme Court now. It was an attempt to save the seven accused who had killed people. This is what Brij Lal (BJP MP) wanted to tell us,” Shah told the Upper House.
The Home Minister also made a veiled attack on former railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav for trying to paint the Godhra train carnage of 2002 as an ‘accident’ and not a conspiracy by appointing a new committee to probe into it when a Commission of Inquiry was already on.
The issue started after BJP MP Brij Lal mentioned the Godhra issue during the debate on the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill and questioned the formation of the U C Banerjee Commission by then railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in September 2004 to investigate the incident.
Lal, a former police officer, said a coach of the Sabarmati Express was set on fire on February 27, 2002, killing 59 people.
“The then railway minister of RJD formed one U C Banerjee Commission, and it had submitted a report on January 17, 2005. The report said the fire was accidental, and the coach was not put on fire,” he said.
The commission report had said there were sadhus in the coach who were smoking weed, and the fire broke out accidentally from that.
Mr Lal, a former Uttar Pradesh-cadre IPS officer, said the lower court had awarded the death penalty to 11 convicts in the case and accused some of the opposition parties of sympathising with the terrorists.
Later, the high court had commuted the death sentence of 11 convicts to life imprisonment while upholding the earlier life sentence of 20 others.
The House also witnessed an uproar for a while.
RJD MP Manoj Jha said any such incident, whether it had happened in Kashmir or Godhra or Delhi, “We all are collectively responsible for that… You cannot blame it on someone.”
On this, Home Minister Amit Shah was up on his feet and said, perhaps, Jha had not listened to the speech of Lal, who had said nothing illogical.
“The Railway minister of that time had tried to give a different angle to the incident in which people were burnt alive,” Shah said.
Without naming Lalu Prasad Yadav, Shah said, despite knowing the fact that an inquiry by a former judge appointed by the Supreme Court was going on, he appointed a new committee by using the Railway Act.
“The committee had suggested that it was an accident and not a conspiracy. The Supreme Court had rejected this,” Shah said, adding, “Hence he (Brij Lal) said that an attempt was made to give it a different angle.”
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