Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday showered praises on ‘The Sabarmati Report’, a film that focuses on the events leading up to the Godhra train tragedy in 2002.
Praising the film, which was released on Friday last week and stars Vikrant Massey, Raashii Khanna and Ridhi Dogra, for “revealing the truth” behind the incident, PM Modi said that a “fake narrative can only persist for a limited period of time”.
Reacting to a post of an X user that recommended The Sabarmati Report as a must-watch, the Prime Minister said, “Well said. It is good that this truth is coming out, and that too in a way common people can see it. A fake narrative can persist only for a limited period of time. Eventually, the facts will always come out!”
The film delves into the 2002 train tragedy which led to riots in several parts of Gujarat. The X user, in his short review, said that the makers handled the issue with a lot of sensitivity and dignity.
Godhra train tragedy
On the morning of February 27, 2002, the Sabarmati Express arrived at Godhra railway station in Gujarat at its scheduled timing. The train, running from Muzaffarpur in Bihar to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, carried hundreds of passengers, including a significant number of karsevaks—Hindu volunteers returning from a religious gathering in Ayodhya.
As the train departed from Godhra, the driver reported that the emergency chains were pulled multiple times, causing the train to halt near the station’s outer signal. What followed was an attack: a mob, reportedly numbering around 2,000 people, pelted stones at the train and set four of its coaches on fire.
The S-6 coach was worst affected, and the fire claimed at least 59 lives, including 27 women and 10 children. Another 48 passengers sustained injuries in the attack.
Shortly after the train burning incident, riots broke out in Godhra, leading to over a 1,000 deaths. At the time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s Chief Minister.