Train Fire in Western India Kills 30 (2,000 MUSLIMS ATTACK TRAIN FULL OF HINDUS - MY TITLE)

YAHOO NEWS ^ | FEBRUARY 27, 2002 | HARISH DESAI

[Madiuq]

AHMADABAD, India (AP) - A mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu activists as it returned from a religious ceremony Wednesday, killing at least 30 people, officials said.

Photos AP Photo

District administrator Jayanti Ravi said there were about 75 passengers in the four coaches of the Sabarmati Express when it was set ablaze in Godhra in the western state of Gujarat. The coaches, she said, had been gutted.

One witness said the attackers numbered more than 2,000.

Ravi said she expected the death toll to rise. "We don't have the final figure yet, but we have counted at 30," she said.

Officials reported at least 38 injuries.

A senior state official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Muslims had attacked the train at the station just as it was leaving Godhra, 95 miles southeast of Ahmadabad, the commercial capital of Gujarat.

The town of Godhra has a 30 percent Muslim population and a history of frequent clashes between Hindus and Muslims.

The train was carrying activists belonging to a Hindu nationalist organization trying to build a temple on the site of a disputed mosque in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The World Hindu Council activists were returning to Gujarat after participating in religious ceremonies at Ayodhya, where Hindu nationalists plan to build a temple at the site of a 16th century Muslim mosque.

When the mosque was torn down by Hindus in 1992, it sparked nationwide riots between Hindus and Muslim and 2,000 people were killed.

More than 20,000 people have gathered in Ayodhya, 345 miles east of New Delhi, since the Council announced it would begin constructing the temple by March 15, ignoring court orders banning construction at the site.

Officials in Godhra said the mob, enraged by slogans shouting by the Hindu nationalists, attacked the train just after it left Godhra railway station in the morning. Initially they pelted stones at the train, and later set four coaches ablaze, said Gordhan Zadaphia, the state home minister.

There were reports of gunfire in the town, but they could not be immediately confirmed.

In the state capital, Gandhinagar, Gujarat Home Minister Gordhan Zadaphia told the State Assembly that shoot-on-sight orders had been issued to prevent any rioting from spreading. He said police reinforcements had been sent in.

Zadaphia said at least 38 people had been injured.

Half of the town was placed under curfew.

Prakash Solanki, the deputy district administrator, said, "There is tension but no further incidents of violence."

Firefighters battled the blaze four hours after it began.

"At least 2,000 people surrounded the coaches and set it on fire," said Harshad Gilletwalla, one of the Hindu activists on the train.

He said those killed were members of the 2,500-strong group of volunteers from Gujarat who had gone to Ayodhya to show support for the new temple construction.

[Cu Roi]

You'd think people would have learned after Sept. 11. There is no looking the other way, and there are no de facto allies. No it's not cool that Hindu nationalists are shooting up churches, but it's not quite the same as intentionally burning people to death.

India is a Hindu country, and every country has its predjudices. But the Hindus that I have encountered in America have been peaceful enough. They don't come here declaring `the war of the infidel' and smash planes into buildings and then bitch about how the `Jew-riddled' media isn't covering their side of the story.

I'm rooting for anyone who fights against Islam at this point. Israeli Jews, Orthodox Russians in Chechnya, Indian Hindus, Filipino Catholics, African Tribalists; we should take allies wherever we can find them.

[amigatec]

Only Muslims are allowed to dynamite and raze the religious shrines, churches and synagogues of others. Then build Mosques on top of the ruins.

Between 1948 and 1967 the Mulims destroyed 48 religious shrines, churches and synagogues in Jerusalem the Jews didn't touch one them.

[katana]

This riot and murder of 30 + Hindus by a Muslim crowd in the heart of one of India's biggest states will not go unanswered by the majority community. I would not want to be anywhere near a Muslim community in that country during the next few days or weeks. The only state which has a Muslim majority is Kashmir. They are isolated and surrounded targets in the rest of the country and there is a bloody history of mass communal killings when things like this provocation have occurred.

[a_Turk]

My condolances.

Let's leave it to the peasants to provide us with a world of ashes. You and I can do better...

[wimpycat]

WRAL-TV.com tells the story this way: "Muslim Mob Attacks Train In India; 50 Dead"

However, the BBC News website says:

"Attackers set Indian train ablaze
At least 55 people have been killed after a train carrying hardline Hindu activists was attacked in the western Indian state of Gujarat as they were returning from a religious ceremony.K

A stone-throwing mob stopped the Sabarmati Express near Godhra, about 160 kilometres (112 miles) from Ahmedabad, and set several coaches on fire.

On board were Hindu activists returning from the disputed holy site of Ayodhya, where a right-wing Hindu group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), has pledged to begin construction of a temple on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque.

The district has a history of Hindu-Muslim tension - a similar incident happened 10 years ago, when at least 15 Hindu right-wing activists travelling by train were killed by Muslims."

Click on the BBC link to see the rest of the story.

On the Guardian (U.K.) website, the story begins with Sectarian train-burning kills 30 in India.

"At least 30 people were killed in India today when about 2,000 Muslims burned a train carrying Hindu nationalists from a ceremony at a disputed religious site." Click on the Guardian link for the rest of the story.

On the other hand, ABC News chose to tell the story using the teaser line:

• Mob Torches Crowded Indian Train
More than 50 people killed in blaze on train carrying Hindu extremists. Click on the ABC link to read the actual story.

CNN doesn't even mention the word "Muslim" until well into the article, and then says that officials refuse to identify the attackers, but says the victims were mostly Hindu extremists. Click on the CNN link to read the whole article.

Good old Fox News has the headline: "Muslim Mob Attacks Train Carrying Hindu Extremists in India". That's the most fair and balanced title I've seen yet. One side is a mob, the other are extremists.

[mikeIII]

Sounds to me like the Muslims are having a worldwide comming out party,

And in other news:
Muslim militants threaten villagers: Serbians 'self-organize themselves with arms' for protection

Ten people killed, 15 injured in shooting at a Shiite mosque in Rawalpindi, Pakistan

...

[Cu Roi]

Only Muslims are allowed to dynamite and raze the religious shrines, churches and synagogues of others. Then build Mosques on top of the ruins.

Ain't that the truth. This temple thing is a pattern, just like St. Sophia's in Constantinople, the Temple Mount, and those Buddha statues in Afghanistan. The objective here is to not only defeat the other religions, but to annhilate any evidence that these religions existed in the first place.

[Delbert]

I am sick of these A- hole Muslims. Wherever they are, they want to claim it as their own. I say round up everylast one of them on the planet and give them their own continent...Antartica.

[Madiuq]

"India is a Hindu country, and every country has its predjudices."

Actually, India is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural, secular, pluralistic, democratic and constitutional republic. Although Hindus are in the majority, every religion known to mankind can be found in India.

[justshutupandtakeit]

One of the reasons for the lack of such strife here is the lack of Moslems in large enough numbers here. Where they come in large numbers religious strife follows as inevitably as night follow day.

It is in the nature of the religion.

[ctdonath2]

Hindu nationalists plan to build a temple at the site of a 16th century Muslim mosque. When the mosque was torn down by Hindus in 1992, it sparked nationwide riots between Hindus and Muslim and 2,000 people were killed.

If you drop a lit match into a can of gasoline, don't blame the gas for what happens.

Neither side is blameless in this. Both sides are antagonizing the other.

[SauronOfMordor]

It's much like the claims by the Amerind tribes in the Kennewick Man case, that their oral histories said they were the first men here, so he was obviously one of them, so he couldn't be studied by anthropologists.

Except that there has been writing in India for thousands of years. We are not talking about 50,000 year old "oral history", but events in the written historical record of India

[Technocrat]

Religion with the spirit of God, even with the shadow of the spirit of God, builds civilizations.
Religion without it destroys them.

[Madiuq]

Not very bright are you?

[justshutupandtakeit]

And since God is Love we can easily see what Islamaniacs serve. In order to believe that Islamanaticism serves God you have to believe "Death is Love."

Islam truly Islame.

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

The future seems to me to be pretty clear, grim, but clear. The Islamics, like any mad dog, will finally overreach because the initial reaction to their barbarism is muted. When they do, they will be utterly distroyed. That means all their 'holy sites', cities and anything else that reminds us of them.

[bray]

Islam-The Religion of Pieces!

[CRAW]

You call Muslims demons, you are being unfair, a large percentage of Muslin’s are peace lovvvvin, Sorry I can’t go on with this I’m making myself Sick.

That is one sick religion

[fm1]

Check out how Reuters and AP's different version of the same story:

AP version: GODHRA, India (AP) - A Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists home from a disputed religious site Wednesday, killing at least 55 people, officials said. Fearing religious strife could spread, the prime minister appealed for calm.

Reuters version: GODHRA (Reuters) - An Indian mob torched a trainload of Hindu activists heading home from a holy site disputed by Hindus and Muslims Wednesday, burning 56 people alive, officials said.

If this is not a blatant display of political correct censorship then I don't know what is..