The officer from the Central Intelligence Bureau (IB) on whose questionable intelligence inputs fake encounters took place was the one who floated the theory that the Godhra carnage was an ISI conspiracy. Then Central IB Joint Director, Ahmedabad, Rajendra Kumar had come up with this theory within hours of burning of S-6 Coach of Sabarmati Express near Godhra station killing 59 passengers on Feb. 27, 2002. This has been told to the Supreme Court-mandated Special Investigation Team (SIT) by retired DGP R B Sreekumar. Sreekumar stated that Rajendra cajoled the DGP to pursue investigation treating Godhra incident as a conspiracy. If Sreekumar is to be believed, the story was concocted by the officer posted in Gujarat by the NDA government. This theory was vigorously pursued by the state government by invoking POTA against the accused. Finally, the theory was demolished by judgments passed by various courts.
Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt also substantiated Sreekumar’s claims. In a letter written to SIT chief R K Raghavan, he stated that as an officer of State Intelligence Bureau (SIB), he conducted an inquiry into this issue and the SIB conclusions “completely demolished the so-called conspiracy theory.” Sreekumar had also told SIT in 2008 that enough evidence was on record “to establish that the anti-minority genocide, following the Godhra train fire incident, was conceived, designed, organised, prepared and perpetrated by chief minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues and Sangh Parivar leaders.”