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:
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
—William Blake (1757–1827)