Forgotten Citizens

Every bout of mass crime, like Bombay 1992-1993 undoubtedly was leaves behind many levels of destruction and denials in its wake. Lives and neighbourhoods are torn apart. To change their characteristics forever.

Among those attacked or killed, but who’s bodies are not identified or found, the “Missing Persons” are often not legally recognised as dead for seven long years. So not only do tragedies occur, but the necessary recompense or reparation is denied. In the case of the survivors of Bombay 1992-1993 too this happened. Sustained campaigns by different citizens groups kept the issues alive and kept a check on the state callouness and administration. Individual donors contributed to the education of Child Survivors of the violence even as calibrated attempts to invoke rights bodies like the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the National Foundation of Communal Harmony) that paid educational dues until the age of 18, continued.

A government that had ridden to power on the promise of the implementation of the Justice BN Srikrishna Commission report miserably failed when it submitted an appalling affidavit on record before the Supreme Court of India. Averments in the documents especially related to its moral intent to prosecute the guilty was flayed a s as series of protests, including a Public Hearing of the Survivors at the KC College (September 2000) jolted a complicit government and administration.

While the sustained protests did not necessarily lead to direct prosecutions the spotlight shamed the government into paying many outstanding dues to Survivors especially Child Survivors. The protests also helped focus on cases like the Usman Suleman Bakery firing, the Hari Masjid firing and cases involving accused politicians from the Shiv Sena including Gajanand Kirtikar and Madhukar Sarpotdar of the Shiv Sena.