The Godhra train burning was an incident that occurred on 27 February 2002 in which 59 people were killed in a fire in a train near the Godhra railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat. Most of the people killed were Hindu pilgrims and activists returning from the holy city of Ayodhya. Victims included many women and children. Investigations and court rulings on the case later established that the fire was caused by arson by radical Islamist mobs and 31 people were convicted for the crime.
This incident triggered communal Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, resulting in deaths of more than 1000 people as well as widespread loss of property and homelessness.
Read more about Godhra Train Burning: Riot History, Attack, Role of Local Government and Police, Inquiries, Trial Court Verdict and Reactions
Famous quotes containing the words train and/or burning:
“We teach boys to be such men as we are. We do not teach them to aspire to be all they can. We do not give them a training as if we believed in their noble nature. We scarce educate their bodies. We do not train the eye and the hand. We exercise their understandings to the apprehension and comparison of some facts, to a skill in numbers, in words; we aim to make accountants, attorneys, engineers; but not to make able, earnest, great- hearted men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“He certainly must be a son of Aurora to whom the sun looms, when there are so many millions to whom it glooms rather, or who will never see it till an hour after it has risen. But it behooves us old stagers to keep our lamps trimmed and burning to the last, and not trust to the suns looming.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)