A policeman looks towards a burnt train coach and belongings of Hindu activists at the Godhra Railway Station, some 125 miles from Ahmedabad, on Feb. 28, 2002. (File photo: AFP)

New Delhi : A judicial commission on Jan. 17 ruled out any foul play in the 2002 train fire in Godhra in which 59 Hindus were killed, an incident that sparked a three-month sectarian violence in Gujarat –– the nation’s worst in recent times.

In revelations likely to have a major political impact, the panel said in its interim report that the fire that razed a coach of the Sabarmati Express killing Hindu train riders was an “accident.”

“The fire was accidental and spread quickly due to foams in berths and passengers’ luggage. There was no external cause,” said retired Supreme Court judge U.C. Banerjee, the chairman of the panel set up in September to probe the Godhra incident of Feb 27, 2002.

Contrary to the Gujarat government’s claims that Muslim miscreants torched the coach bearing mostly kar sevaks or Hindu volunteers, the panel surmised that the fire was possibly the result of cooking inside the coach or due to a carelessly thrown cigarette butt. The Godhra train torching led to state-wide retaliatory violence in Gujarat, in which at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed and thousands rendered homeless.

Banerjee was appointed in September 2004 to investigate the Godhra incident even as Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad was slammed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–– which rules Gujarat –– of trying to twist facts.

Reacting sharply to the panel’s interim report, the BJP accused Lalu Prasad of using the findings to divert attention from the misrule of his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar, which goes to the polls Feb 3.

The Congress, which heads the ruling coalition at the Center, countered the BJP’s accusation, saying this was the first time that facts connected to the case were coming out instead of the (BJP-ruled Gujarat) government’s version.