Lucknow Press
Last year, suddenly two movies being made on the Godhra incident came into the news. One is ‘The Sabarmati Report’ by Vikrant Massey and Riddhi Dogra and the other is ‘Accident and Conspiracy Godhra’. One thing is clear from the titles of both that both will be based on investigation reports and both will be based more on the Godhra incident i.e. the burning of Sabarmati train than the Gujarat riots. In such a situation, some scenes of ‘The Sabarmati Report’ are being re-shot, while Godhra has been released on 19th.
Whatever be the result of this movie at the box office, but it is certain that this movie is going to bring alive in front of the eyes of common people the incident that happened at Godhra station for the first time, which has been influencing Indian politics for a long time and will continue to do so in future too.
One thing was clear that the budget of the film was low, but the producer-director was quite confident that he would be able to put his point across. Since the title of the film is Accident or Conspiracy, the director will have to choose one in the end, so he will be accused of being one-sided. Despite this, the film was created in such a way from the beginning that before the climax, the audience will see many mistakes of the Hindu side as well.
Story of Accident or Conspiracy: Godhra
The story is written on the pretext of hearing of Nanavati Mehta Commission which investigated the Godhra incident, something like what happened in ‘Tashkent Files’, but those people were discussing among themselves. A character like Krishna of ‘Kashmir Files’ was also created who wants to do research on this topic, but does not know the reality of Godhra incident, so he remains influenced by the other side. In front of the commission, lawyer Mahmood Qureshi (Ranvir Shorey) is trying to prove that the Godhra incident was an accident, while lawyer Ravindra Pandya (Manoj Joshi) is proving it to be a well-planned conspiracy. In the beginning itself, Mahmood Qureshi creates sensation through two witnesses.
One witness is a tea vendor at the station, who tells how the karsevaks did not pay for the tea and misbehaved and threatened her when she asked for it. The second witness was a girl, who told the commission how the karsevaks misbehaved and molested her on the platform. Later, a third witness travelling in the adjacent coach surprised everyone, she claimed that she was smelling some inflammable substance in coach S-6 where the karsevaks were sitting. Mahmood Qureshi claimed that it could be kerosene, which the karsevaks were carrying with the stove, and that must have caused the fire. The inability of the second lawyer Ravindra Pandya to ask anything in front of these witnesses gives the message that the Godhra incident was not that easy.
This story is based on the family of station master Deshpande (Hitu Kanodia), whose wife Devki (Denisha Ghumra) and son were also returning from Ayodhya in the Sabarmati train, and he himself was on leave that day. After this incident, he leaves his job in the railways and starts teaching in a college and there a student asks him for permission to do research on the Gujarat riots, the story begins then.
But the story of Godhra movie cannot be complete without media, how in the beginning itself Ravindra Pandya targets a famous lady TV anchor for biased reporting of Gujarat riots through a scene, is enough to show the role of some media people at that time. In the end, it was interesting to see how Ravindra Pandya dispels each and every statement of Qureshi one by one. But in the climax, it was horrifying to see 59 people burning alive in the train, and that too when you come to know that 27 women and 10 children also died in this fire.
Review of ‘Accident and Conspiracy Godhra’
However, the importance of this film lies only in the fact that people can know in two and a quarter hours what happened and how this incident was a conspiracy or an accident. Even today, no one in the country knows the name of even a single person who died in the Godhra train. In such a situation, this movie is a creative document to preserve this horrific incident, which has now become a part of history.
Although the movie would not be able to reach that scale due to the low budget and small stars, it was necessary to make it.
Some questions were also raised that when Devki had to get down at Godhra, then why did she not get down? From this movie it seemed that at the previous stations where she was repeatedly asking about Godhra, why did she not get down on reaching Godhra. Whereas the assistant station master had told in his testimony that the frenzied mob did not allow anyone to get down at the station, and this testimony is not included in the movie. Giving the example of Ayodhya by a policeman also seems one-sided.
There are three songs in the movie ‘Accident and Conspiracy Godhra’
There are two Bhajans in the music of V Rex, both are well made, one is Mangalam Mangalam in the voice of Kailash Kher and the other is Siya Ram in the voice of Divya Kumar and Vaishali Made. There is also a song Aaj Tara Tara in the voice of Popon. Which is threaded in such a situation in such a serious movie that it gives you relief. In this movie, you will also see those two characters of Gujarat riots in the beginning, who became famous all over the country after being published in a magazine in those days.
