Talati rules out tampering of samples from S-6 coach

Ahmedabad, Jun 26 (UNI) Gujarat FSL Assistant Director Deepak Talati today ruled out any possibility of tampering with the samples collected from S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express train, in which 59 Karsevaks of VHP were burnt alive at Godhra on February 27, 2002.

Mr Talati gave negative replies to the queries seeking to know it there was any tampering with the evidences of samples collected by FSL from coach S6. He was being cross-examined by the Nanavati and Shah Panel set to probe the post-Godhra communal riots in 2002.

The FSL official was crossed examined by advocate Mukul Sinha of the NGO Jan Sangharsh Manch. Mr Sinha told the panel there was a possibility that petrol could have been poured over the samples before they were handed over to the FSL.

''Can you say that small quantities of petrol were applied on each of the samples before they were sealed and handed over to FSL?'', the advocate asked which was denied by the FSL official.

Mr Talati informed the Commission that during his tests, he could found any fluid petrol on any of the samples which were sent to me for forensic tests,'' he said.

Mr Sinha then claimed that 46 of the 47 gas chromatographs, which were submitted by Talati last week to the panel, clearly indicate the presence of fluid petrol in the samples.

''Talati's graphs show that the proportion of highly volatile components of petrol was more than it's lesser volatile components in samples taken from the charred remains of the coach,'' Sinha said.

The FSL official defended this by saying that he had not done a quantitative analysis of the samples and so did not agree with Sinha. He said the laboratory could not conduct a quantitative analysis of samples now.

''The samples inside the S-6 coach of the train could have been tampered with as they were collected hours after the incident and by then a large number of persons, including Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had physically stepped inside the bogie,'' Sinha later told reporters.

Mr Talati had examined the samples taken from the train and concluded in his forensic report that they contained petroleum hydrocarbons, which indicated that large quantities of petrol were used to burn the coach.

Earlier, Mr Sinha had said the cause of the blaze in the train could have been a flash-over fire, or a small fire that suddenly erupts in a closed space like the coach of a train.

UNI