At one point, in what amounted to a publicity disaster for Modi, a visibly angry Lyngdoh berated officials after visiting one area where he'd been told residents were returning.

"What kind of stories are you telling us?" he said. "The houses are all vacant. Are you not ashamed of yourselves?"

In another fraught exchange, he castigated the state Chief Secretary, demanding: "Have you seen the relief camps? You call this normalcy?"

Lyngdoh heard that many survivors living in squalid conditions in camps were still too afraid to go back to their homes and that, in any case, they had received little or no compensation to help them rebuild.

Clearly dissatisfied with what he saw - and with the answers to his questions about prosecutions - Lyngdoh officially ruled out elections in any immediate future.

His findings confirmed what had been clear on the ground for many weeks. Across the state, burned out and partly demolished homes remain a constant reminder of the bloodshed. According to officials, the Gujarat administration has made no provision to rebuild the 600 mosques that were destroyed.
And although some survivors - mostly in rural areas - have returned to their homes because they recognise that their attackers were outsiders and not part of the local Hindu community, others have chosen to stay on in camps even though government rations of rice and other staples were discontinued many weeks ago.