Ahmedabad, March 7: None of the nine Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) witnesses in the Godhra train-burning case was found reliable, embarrassing the outfit and fuelling allegations that it tried to derail the investigation.

The special court, which delivered the verdict last month, found the witnesses lying about the sequence of incidents at Godhra where 59 kar sevaks were burnt alive in a coach of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. Their evidence had to be eventually discarded because of the glaring inconsistencies in their accounts.

The holes in the testimonies led the court to acquit 63 people, including prime accused Maulvi Umarji. Eleven people, including a former councillor, were given the death sentence while the remaining 20 convicts were handed life terms. The train fire had triggered the anti-Muslim riots in Narendra Modi-ruled Gujarat.

Special judge P.R. Patel had heard the case in the Sabarmati jail where the accused were lodged. In his 826-page verdict, the judge observed that the VHP functionaries did not “witness the truth” and the court “has no other option but to discard their evidence in totality with regard to their presence at the time of the incident”.

High court lawyer Girish Patel said the court’s remarks on the witnesses “certainly reflects on the organisation (VHP)”. But Rajendra Tiwari, a Godhra VHP activist and advocate, disagreed. “Although we welcome the verdict, we don’t agree with the judge on this particular observation (on the witnesses). We stick to our version.”

Some of the nine witnesses claimed that they had gone to Godhra station on the day of the incident to serve tea and snacks to the kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya by the train. The court found that implausible. “The normal arrival time of the train at Godhra was 2.55am — time for peaceful sleep, not a proper time for welcoming or offering tea and snacks to kar sevaks,” judge Patel said and pointed out other contradictions.

Five of the witnesses who claimed they were at the station to welcome the kar sevaks failed to explain what they did after the express left Godhra, and knew nothing about a fight alleged to have occurred between the kar sevaks and some food vendors on the platform. Surprisingly, none of the witnesses suffered injuries of any kind in the reported brawl even though they claimed to be with the kar sevaks all along.

After the witnesses were cross-examined and the evidence scrutinised, the judge concluded that it could not rely on them. “It is clear that the facts narrated by them could never be accepted as gospel truth.”