The Sabarmati Express coach-burning was a 'pre-planned conspiracy', a probe panel has said also giving a clean chit to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the state police in the subsequent post-Godhra riots that claimed over 1,000 lives.
The report was tabled in the Gujarat Assembly on Thursday.
The report, which went into the coach burning in February 2002 in which 58 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya, were killed, "was a pre-planned conspiracy" which was hatched at the Aman Guest House in Godhra.
The train carnage was cited as the reason by Hindu outfits to justify the post-Godhra pogrom.
This finding of the two-member Commission goes contrary to a probe headed by another former Supreme Court judge U C Banerjee set up by the Lalu Prasad-headed railway ministry that the coach burning was purely an accident.
Retired justice Akshay Mehta was the other member of the Nanavati Commission.
"There is absolutely no no evidence to show that either the Chief Minister or any of the ministers in his council or police officers had played any role in the Godhra incident," said the report of Justice G T Nanavati, a former Supreme Court judge, that went into the train burning incident.
The first part of the report was tabled in the state assembly on Thursday and evoked instant criticism from political parties and activists opposed to the Bharatiya Janan Party. They contended that the commission was set up to "mislead" the people.
Protesting the findings of the report, the Opposition Congress staged a walkout from the assembly.
The two-member commission headed by Justice G T Nanavati was appointed by the Narendra Modi-led government after the riots.
The commission examined more than 1,000 witnesses during the period of six years.
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