The Nanavati-Mehta Commission is the commission of inquiry appointed by the government of Gujarat to probe the Godhra train burning incident of 27 February 2002. Its mandate was later enlarged to include the investigation of the 2002 Gujarat riots. It was appointed on 6 March 2002, with K. G. Shah, a retired Gujarat High Court judge, as its only member. It was later re-constituted to include G. T. Nanavati, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India, after protests from human rights organizations over Shah's closeness to then-Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Akshay H. Mehta, retired judge of the Gujarat High Court, replaced Shah when the latter died before the submission of the commission's interim report. Mehta was the same judge who had granted bail to Babu Bajrangi, the main accused of the Naroda Patiya massacre. In September 2008 the Commission submitted the part of its report covering the Godhra train burning incident (Part I) in which it had concluded that burning of the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express near Godhra railway station was a "planned conspiracy". The part dealing with subsequent violence was submitted on 18 November 2014. Its term ended on 31 October 2014, having received 24 extensions from the state government. Background On the morning of 27 February 2002, the Sabarmati Express, returning from Ayodhya to Ahmedabad, was stopped near the Godhra railway station. Several of the passengers were Hindu kar sevaks, or volunteers, returning from a religious ceremony at the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri mosque site. The train was set on fire by a Muslim mob (Nanavati-Mehta Commission concluded that the burning of S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express near Godhra railway station was a "planned conspiracy."), trapping many people inside. The resulting blaze killed 59 people, including 25 women and 25 children. The event was generally perceived as the trigger for the anti-Muslim riots that followed, in which some estimate upwards of 2000 people were killed, while 150,000 were displaced. Rape, mutilation, and torture were also widespread. Appointment and membership On 6 March 2002, the government of Gujarat appointed a commission of inquiry under section 3 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 to investigate into the Godhra train burning incident, the subsequent riots and the adequacy or lack thereof of the administrative measures taken to prevent and deal with the disturbances that followed, both in Godhra and subsequently across the state. The commission was a single