Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke on the Gujarat riots in Podcast with Lex Freedman. During this time, PM Modi termed the incident of Godhra train as unimaginable tragedy and described it as the point of spark for the 2002 Gujarat riots.
PM Modi said, “At that time there was a government of opposition at the center. He tried his best to punish us in these false cases against us. “PM Modi said, despite his efforts, the judiciary analyzed the entire incident in detail. The accused have been punished.
‘It is necessary to know the events before the 2002 riots’
PM Modi said, “Before you talk about the 2002 riots, I would like to present a picture of previous years to give you a proper estimate of the situation. On 24 December 1999, the aircraft going from Kathmandu to Delhi was hijacked and taken to Kandahar. There was a terrorist attack on the Red Fort in Delhi in 2000. On September 11, 2001, there was a terrorist attack on the US and Kashmir, on October 2001. The terrorist attack took place on 13 December 2001.
PM Modi said, these were global terrorist attacks, which laid the spark of global instability. Amidst all this, I was to become the Chief Minister of Gujarat on 7 October 2001. On 24 February 2002, I became an MLA for the first time. On February 27, my government was going to present the budget, then we got information about the Godhra train accident. This was a very serious incident. People were burnt alive. You can imagine how the situation must have been after all previous events. There were more than 250 big riots in Gujarat before 2002.
There was no riots in Gujarat after 2002- PM Modi
PM Modi said, the riots of 1969 lasted for 6 months. At that time the opposition was in power, and he tried his best to punish us in these false cases against us. Despite their efforts, the judiciary analyzed the entire incident in detail. The accused have been punished. There were frequent riots in Gujarat before 2002, but no major incident took place after 2002.