Of course, no one expected the Shiv Sena-BJP government, which ruled Maharashtra between 1995 and 1999, to act on the recommendations of the commission. But it is over six months since the Congress and the National Congress Party coalition has been in power in the state. There is no suggestion that either of the coalition partners have any intention of acting on an elementary demand that has been repeatedly raised by secular action and human rights groups since the riots – Punish the guilty.

Given the callousness of the government, the only option left before survivors of the riots and concerned citizens is to mobilise public opinion and appeal for justice, yet again, before the courts. In Mumbai, the Nirbhay Bano Andolan has submitted 18,000 signatures to chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and put up posters in the city demanding action on Justice Srikrishna’s report.

Meanwhile, two Muslims from Mumbai have filed an application before the Supreme Court of India, praying to be made intervenors in a related case pending before the apex court. One of them is Abdul Rehman, whose son Abdul Mannan was hacked with swords and then burnt to death by a riotous mob at Pratiksha Nagar (Antop Hill) in central Mumbai on January 11, 1993. The other applicant, Haji Abdul Haq Ansari, too, is a riot victim. Ansari’s workshop was looted and burnt on December 7 and 8, 1992. But instead of any action against the Shiv Sainiks whom the victim could easily identify as they lived in a building opposite his workshop, the police detained Ansari, beat him and his workers and slapped false charges against him.

In both these incidents, the police were sharply criticised by the commission for serious dereliction of duty. In the Antop Hill case, though Rahman, the father, had personally complained to the police that his son had been burnt alive, the police told the commission that they had misplaced his complaint and registered the case as a ‘missing person’ complaint. "Lapses in the investigation were probably not cases of negligence but deliberate attempts to suppress material evidence and sabotage the investigation," the commission concluded.

And in Ansari’s case, it observed that, "the commission has no doubt that there was deliberate scuttling of the investigation by the police because the accused were influential Shiv Sainiks". Justice Srikrishna recommended that the guilty police officers be punished for their "extremely communal conduct in their refusal to record complaints in which Hindus were accused and because they harassed and mistreated Muslims".

Of the policemen named by Justice Srikrishna, the list included police constables at the bottom of the ladder to the then joint commissioner of police, RD Tyagi. As is obvious from the application for intervention filed before the Supreme Court, not only has no action been taken against even one of the 29 policemen, several of them have since the riots received one or more promotions. Tyagi was made the city’s police commissioner by the Sena-BJP government in October 1995; the day he retired from service he declared himself a ‘loyal sainik’ of Bal Thackeray and joined the Shiv Sena!

Soon after the Congress-NCP coalition came to power, a delegation of prominent citizens met chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to impress upon him that the very principle of rule of law would stand seriously compromised if the state fails to act against law-keepers who turn into law-breakers. Deshmukh has yet to act on his promise.

The application for intervention has made three prayers before the Supreme Court: one, summary dismissal of policemen named by the Srikrishna commission; two, reopening of criminal cases which the police had arbitrarily closed; three, payment of compensation to family members of those who still figure as ‘missing persons’ in police records, over eight years since the riots.