Azam Khan in his affidavit said that CBI had took his signature on 20 blank papers. He said for him there was no alternative but to give statement as directed by CBI.

Azam Khan’s latest affidavit is yet another example of how CBI works. Prior to his this statement, two other key witnesses Nuru Ghoghari and Sohrabuddin’s brother Nayeemuddin have also alleged CBI of pressurizing them for desired statement.

Thanks for the link. It is here (along with a few others).

…
Two days after the Nanavati-Shah Commission gave a clean cheat to Narendra Modi, Tehelka organized a press conference to publicly deny the claims of the Commission. The latest issue of the weekly magazine also rebuts the Nanavati Report in great detail.
…The Nanavati Commission findings state that the burning of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002 was “a pre-planned conspiracy, not a spontaneous act of mob fury.” It makes it plain that 140 litres of petrol was procured from a nearby petrol pump certified by Ranjitsingh Patel and Prabhatsingh Patel, two attendants at the petrol pump. This was then used to burn Coach S-6, the subsequent day.

…Tehelka, which claims to have conducted an exhaustive investigation in 2007 on the Godhra incident raised questions about the authenticity of the Nanavati Report at a press conference at Women’s Press Club recently and also does so in its latest issue.

…Tarun Tejpal accuses the Godhra police of “staging this conspiracy” while he calls the outburst “a spontaneous action” in the latest issue of his weekly magazine. He claims that his team investigated to find out that the attendants of the petrol pump were bribed to say that they had sold 140 litres of petrol to Muslim hawkers. And that Tehelka has even caught Ranjitsingh Patel on sting camera “admitting that the chief investigating officer had paid him and Prabhatsingh Patel Rs 50,000 each to falsely identify some Muslims as conspirators.”

The camera footage that Tehelka showed at Women’s Press Club and also distributed to other media persons recently in support of their argument however does not make the editor’s claims clear.

The Tehelka version of the story

The Sabarmati Express carrying many karsevaks arrives at the Godhra station at 7.43 am on 27 February, 2002. At first there is a minor feud between few karsevaks and a tea vendor over payment of money for the tea that they had bought.

Then one karsevak tries to abduct a Muslim girl from the platform. This leads to rumours that Muslims have been abducted and taken aboard the train. The feud gets bitter and ends with the burning of coach S-6.

When I asked Tarun Tejpal how such a huge crowd assembled at the station in such short interval and how did they manage the inflammatory material to set the coach on fire, he did not have a convincing answer. (It must be remembered that the train had first stopped for only about five minutes at the station when the crowd had gathered).

“Throw a stone at somebody and see how many people assemble,” said the veteran journalist in his defence.

Within five minutes a mob of “more than 1000 Muslims had gathered and started pelting stones at the train,” (according to Tehelka’s own reports) seems an a bit unconvincing. Since Tehelka puts the outburst as spontaneous, prior preparations for the burning or assemblage of the crowd was out of question.

Loopholes in the story

The report by Ashish Ketan (Manufacturing a Conspiracy, Cover Story, Tehelka, Saturday 11 Oct, 2008) quotes few of the passengers in the Sabarmati Express to prove the same point – that there was a quarrel between the karsevaks and tea vendor at the station. A minor feud over the price of few cups of tea (only few karsevaks had bought tea) definitely does not lead to the burning of a train.

The other and more important argument that the report gives is that one of the karsevaks had tried to abduct a Muslim girl. The report however does not provide any evidence. It is unlikely that no one in the station saw this incident though they saw the small feud between a tea vendor and the few karsevaks. The “ordinary passengers (not the karsevaks)” travelling in the Sabarmati Express who are otherwise incessantly quoted to testify that there was feud between a tea vendor and few karsevaks and that there was stone pelting do not bear testimony to the attempted abduction of a Muslim girl which is likely to grab more eyeballs.

The report also quotes the Muslim girl, Sophia Bano. She says that she was caught by one man from behind but was left as soon as her mother raised an alarm – An incident which is not testified by anyone else. But raised such hue and cry that a mob of 1000 Muslims gathered instantaneously.

Both these incidents (the tea vendor feud and the attempted abduction) took place within four minutes (between 7.43 am and 7.47 am) according to Tehelka’s own cover story report and its graphical illustration of the events. And within the same time interval the huge mob of 1000 Muslims had gathered.

The report disputes the use of any inflammatory material for the burning of Coach S-6 because the eyewitnesses that the Nanavati Commission has are the karsevaks. The forensic reports in this case will be of greater help than mere claims of those who “did not see the inflammable material.”

Eyewitnesses absent ?

Kakul Pathak, media cell convenor of the BJP in Godhra and Murli Mulchandani, the vice-president of the Godhra Municipal Corporation were two of the key eyewitnesses for the police. Tehelka claimed that it caught both of them admitting on camera that they were not even present at the station on the day of the incident. The video that was shown to the media persons in support of this argument, also there on the website, was however too unclear to deduce anything from it. The rest of the videos that had the other eyewitnesses “admitting that they were not present at the scene of the incident,” were out of sync. It made it difficult to deduce anything from it.

Tarun Tejpal when asked why the video was out of sync, reasoned that it was captured by hidden cameras and the Tehelka team “only showed what they had investigated”. He further added that “we are a group of only four or five reporters who are committed to truth.”

*** Excerpts ***

…What is the truth? One close look at the evidence with an open mind would indicate that the truth seems closer to what the Commission has said than what is being claimed by its critics.

…The investigation into the case was led by DIG Rakesh Asthana, now IG and Vadodara Police Commissioner, and conducted by Dy SP Noel Parmar, a Christian officer known for his efficiency.

In fact when Parmar was appointed as investigation officer of the case, many in the Sangh Parivar complained to the government saying that he was a Christian and could play mischief under pressure of the minority lobby. However, the government didn’t change him inspite of such towering pressure.

Both Asthana and Parmar are known as upright and efficient officers and unlikely to toe a purely political line. That’s perhaps the reason why the Nanavati Commission has relied heavily on Parmar’s investigation in concluding that the Godhra case was a conspiracy.

The report says that the conspiracy was hatched by Salim Panwala, Razak Kurkur and around half a dozen others including Maulvi Husssein Umarj who was the main conspirator. The motive was to take revenge on the demolishers of Babri Masjid.

A night before the incident, they held a meeting in Aman Guest House opposite the station owned by an accused Razak Kurkur. Then they brought 140 litres petrol from the petrol pump closeby in seven plastic cans. The petrol was brought in a green tempo by Imran Sheru, Hasan Charkha, Jabir Behra and Mehmood Khalid and few more persons who kept it in the room of guest house.

According to the report, their plan went haywire when they learnt that the Sabarmati Express was several hours late and would arrive only after dawn instead of midnight.

Since the train got late they changed the strategy. When the train was about to leave the station at around 8 next morning they spread the false alarm that a Muslim girl had been abducted into the train by the Ramsevaks.

As a result, hundreds of irate Muslims gathered to attack the train. The report says that the conspirators wanted this melee to camouflage their designs and therefore they spread the false alarm.

…The report concluded that the story of a Muslim girl’s abduction was falsely spread on that morning of the unfortunate incident.

This rumour was part of a conspiracy in order to collect a crowd to attack the train.

The 168 page report says that in the melee Sjaukat Laloo and Mohammed Latika cut open the rear vestibule of S-6 and entered the train from there and the opened the closed door to allow the other conspirators to move into the compartment with the petrol.

Hasan Lalu then threw a burning rag to start the blaze even as the mob continued to pelt stones to prevent the passengers from moving out of the burning train coach. This is by and large what Noel Parmar has said in his investigation.

***

Maybe you can link to it from your website.