Frontline
January 1999
Update

Mumbai riots: Waiting for justice

"They (the Police), dragged my son Shanavaz out, hitting him with batons. I went after them, but they hit me too and told me to get back upstairs. I said, ‘At least, return my son to me’. But, they drove me away brutally. My daughter saw them from the window. They pushed my son to the ground, and shot him dead. We gave evidence before Justice Srikrishna. I wasn’t surprised though, when the report got rejected. But, time has changed nothing. We’re still petitioners in the High Court and we still want Justice."– Akhtar Hasan Wagle, resident of Pathan Chawl.

Scratch slightly below the surface of daily mundane life, and the anguish, fear and pain that they faced during the riots is still fresh. The outrage and anger is still just as strong, if not stronger, after the rejection of the Srikrishna report.

Though not surprised about the rejection, the victims of the riots are far from reconciled to it. "Koi kanoon naam ki cheez hai ya nahin?"(Is there such a thing as the law or not?), asks Amir Hasan Iraqi, who lost both home and means of livelihood during the riots. "Unki manmaani hai"(They do as they like), he adds with reference to the Shiv Sena’s rejection of the report. Sheikh Mehmood, an elderly resident of Yaseen Misri Chawl, in which Muslim houses had been burnt down in January ‘93, asks a pertinent question. "Sirf hamare tasalli ke liye rakha tha kya?" (Was theCommittee appointed only to pacify us?) But, in spite of it all, hopes are far from snuffed out yet. "The guilty must still be punished, that’s all", Mehmood adds resolutely.

Six petitions are pending in court, relating to the Srikrishna report. Four of these petitions are pending in the High Court and two have been filed in the Supreme Court. The High Court petitions include one by the Minorities front of the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, Committee for the protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) and the Bombay Aman Committee. In the Supreme Court, a petition has been filed by a group of organisations that have come together to form the Action taken Committee for the implementation of the Srikrishna report.

The truth of the matter however, is that nothing much has happened. "The High Court is waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision, since the matters are all related", says P.Sebastian, council for the CPDR. And the matter is yet to come up before the Supreme Court.

Y.H.Muchhala, council for the Action taken Committee for the implementation of the Srikrishna report, says, "Our main contention is that any action under section 3 (4), of the Commission of Inquiry Act, under which the government has set aside the Srikrishna Commission Report, must be an action in public law and in the public interest. We contend that the government, when they rejected the report, was actuated by political considerations rather than public interest. The rejection was simply an attempt to save themselves from political embarrassment. Therefore, it is malafide."

The Supreme Court right now has a lot of hopeful eyes trained towards it. Naseem Khan, who helped organise relief for over 560 homeless Hindus and Muslims in Ghatkopar, says, "It was our petition in the High Court that finally compelled the government to table the report. Now, we are in Court fighting for the implementation of the Report. And I have full faith that the Supreme Court will give us justice."

Justice, however, does not hinge merely on the SC decision. The government had accepted a number of recommendations of the Srikrishna report relating largely to reforms in Police functioning. Two of the accepted recommen

dations were the formation of Committees to look into the ‘A’ commission cases (cases that have been labelled ‘true but undetected’ and therefore closed by the Police), and the second, to investigate the cases against those identified as delinquent officers in the Srikrishna Report. Almost 60 per cent of the registered riot cases have been closed under the ‘A’ commission section. "Of about 2300 registered cases, 800 are pending, about 30 have been decided and the rest, about 1375 cases, have been closed under this ‘A’ summary category", says P.Sebastian. A Committee under the Director General of Police has been appointed to look into the cases. In spite of repeated attempts by Communalism Combat to ascertain the Committee’s progress, the DG has been ‘unavailable’ for an interview. "Nothing has happened", says Sebastian about the ‘A’ summary cases. "And I don’t think anything will happen. You see, if in a criminal case, of say arson, you keep the matter pending for so many years, your evidence simply disappears. In all such cases, justice delayed is most definitely justice denied."

Again, there is little the Court can do, points out Sebastian. "All the cases where Muslims were the accused, there have been convictions, because ultimately, the Police is the investigating agency. If they don’t bring evidence to Court, what can be done?"

"The attitude of the Police", says Muchhala, "is clear if you look at two incidents. In Devipada, a mother and daughter were stripped in the middle of the street. The mother was told to run, while the daughter was subsequently burnt alive. The Police brought neither the mother, nor the only eyewitness, a Hindu woman, who saw the entire incident from her window, to Court. On the other hand, in the Radhabai chawl incident, the Police, in their enthusiasm to punish somebody for the incident, simply rounded up a couple of Muslims from the area, and got them falsely identified by some Hindus in the area. After suffering four and a half years of imprisonment, the SC finally acquitted them with the remark that the Police had gone out of its way to frame them."

The investigations against the delinquent officers, have also not made too much progress in the past five months. The Additional Chief Secretary (Home), K.C.Srivastava, who heads the Committee told CC, "Well, we are still going through the records. There are after all 14 trunks of records. This has taken time. In another two weeks, I expect the material will be ready and notices will subsequently be issued to each of the officers. They will be given time to present any other records in their defence and then there will be a further investigation. After the investigation, the Committee will be in a position to say whether action should be taken, and if the action should be departmental or in cases of more serious offences, whether the officers should face prosecution."

Responding to whether the people could trust the current government to take any real action in the matter, considering they had conveniently rejected parts of the report unfavourable to them, he replied, "I think this is a misinterpretation that has been perpetuated. Wherever political figures have been named by the Report, no recommendations have been made. Wherever there are specific recommendations, the government has accepted them."

The government’s attempt to brush the entire issue under the carpet, in the six years that have elapsed after the riots has certainly not served to heal the psychological scars of the victims. And with the attacks against Christians in various parts of the country, anxiety has risen again. "Dar lagta hai kahin phir se bhagna na pade" (We’re constantly in fear that we may have to run for our lives again), says Khurshid Ahmed, another resident of Yaseen Misri Chawl. Worn out by the constant fear and the unpredictability of the situation, in some cases, Justice has become a secondary issue. "Who will punish them after all this time? We lost so much in the riots. But, what compensations did we get? A thousand, two thousand rupees?", says Khurshid. "Forget the compensation. We just want to live in peace."

And though the fight continues, there is also a tacit acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task. "Legally, I’m not very hopeful. And politically...even if a Congress government comes to power, how can one expect anything? The Congress was in power when it all actually happened!" says Sebastian. For the victims of the riots, even if the report is accepted, unless action is taken against the guilty, it will be a vindication only in principle.

According to Muchhala, however, whether the Sena is indicted or not, "the Public must be made aware of who is guilty. As long as the public debate is on, we are one step closer to eradicating communalism from our body politic."

But, debate is not going to be enough for some of the victims. Israr Ahmed, who was rendered homeless during the riots says, "The fires still burn within us. I saw before my eyes, a three-month old child being beheaded. Till today the Police have not registered the case. We will not forget what we saw and felt to our dying day. If we do not get justice from the Court, we will take the protest to the streets. We will not let it rest."

Nothing can stop the haunting memories from constantly returning. And as Muchhala says, "The government’s exhortations that it is time to forgive and forget with its declarations that the wounds have healed, (the government had made similarly hollow noises at the time of disbanding the Srikrishna Commission in January 1996, saying, ‘it was only likely to open old wounds which had healed’) are grotesque.

It reminds me of an old story about a boy who murders his parents and then appeals for mercy on grounds of being an orphan! Their platitudes are proof of their naked hypocrisy."

Sufiya Pathan


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