NEW DELHI: Home minister Amit Shah on Friday met the production team and cast of ‘The Sabarmati Report’ — a film based on the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, 2002 — and congratulated them “for their courage to narrate the truth”.
“The film exposes the lies and the misleading facts to unveil the truth that was suppressed for a long time to meet political interests,” Shah stated in a post on ‘X’. The post put out photographs of his meeting with key members of the team behind the film, including producer Ekta Kapoor and lead actor Vikrant Massey, at his North Block office.
Produced by Balaji Motion Pictures and distributed by Zee Studies, the movie stars Vikrant Massey, Raashii Khanna and Riddhi Dogra. It is directed by Dheeraj Sarna.
The appreciation post by Shah comes close on the heels of many BJP-ruled states declaring the film tax-free. These states include Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
Fire inside the Sabarmati Express near the Godhra railway station in Gujarat in 2002 had killed 59 Hindu pilgrims and kar sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya. The incident had triggered communal riots in Gujarat. A commission set up by the then railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had in its report described the fire as an accident. However, the trial court in March 2011 convicted 31 persons in the case, sentencing 11 to death 20 to life imprisonment. In October 2017, Gujarat High Court upheld the convictions but commuted the death sentences of 11 to life imprisonment. Several appeals against the Gujarat HC are pending in the Supreme Court.
