Meerut killings of 87: Three of the 19 PAC killers are dead, justice must be done while the rest are still alive

(Tehelka, Aug 05 , 2006)

‘Three of the 19 PAC killers are dead, justice must be done while the rest are still alive’

It was an outrage that made national headlines – dozens of Muslim men picked up from a locality in Meerut by the PAC and shot in cold blood. That happened nearly 20 years ago, in the summer of 1987. The trial has got underway only now. Avinash Dutt picks up the pieces of a story that symbolises the rot in our justice system

Worse Than A Nightmare: Bismillah with a photograph of her son who was killed
Photo Jane Rankin-reid

Over 360 men were rounded up into PAC trucks. Of them,
42 of the fittest men were taken to the Ganga Barrage canal in the adjoining Ghaziabad district. They
were made to stand in groups and 19 PAC personnel
started shooting at them
Zulfikar Nasir is a first. But he would rather not claim that. Because it is a dubious first. He was the first eyewitness/survivor to depose in court for the massacre of 35 people in Meerut’s Hashimpura locality that took place way back in May, 1987.

Almost 20 years later, Nasir showed the scars left behind by the police bullet on his torso to Additional Sessions Judge NP Kaushik on July 22. That evening a bunch of women — mothers and wives who lost their sons and husbands — watched him depose intently. “I am happy. Finally we are hopeful that justice would be done,” said Rafeekan Bi, whose 16-year-old son Allauddin was among the dead.

On May 22, 1987, Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel rounded up hundreds of young men from this locality on that fateful day in 1987. Some of them, to be exact 35, didn’t survive the night.

The survivors, some of them sustained bullet wounds and lived, moved from one court to another in their search for justice, the PAC personnel grew old and moved ahead. And the victims’ helplessly witnessed a national tragedy turning into a private battle for justice.

The trail of incidents is still vivid in the minds of people who suffered it. Ameena Bi could never forget the day when her family lost three young boys — Shamshad (15), Jamshed (17), and Asif (20). She and her sister-in-law Bismillah were in one of the two rooms of their home with younger children. Due to the curfew, the 20-strong family was at home.

May 22, 1987 was otherwise an unremarkable day, the curfew was on following communal riots that had engulfed Meerut. Contingents of Army and paramilitary forces cordoned off Hashimpura and launched their search-and-arrest mission. They brought out all the men in the locality onto the road. Over 360 men were arrested and rounded up into PAC trucks and sent to the Civil Lines police station and Police Lines.

Of the 360, 42 fit-looking men were taken to the Ganga Barrage canal in the adjoining Ghaziabad district. They were made to stand in groups and 19 PAC personnel started shooting at them. The bodies were tossed into the canal. After some were killed, the headlights of passing vehicles made PAC personnel flee the spot with those alive. They took the rest to Hindon Canal and set about finishing the task, some were shot inside the trucks. In all 42 were shot at, seven who were thought to be dead survived. The rest died. Of the 35 dead, not all bodies could be recovered.

All Ameena Bi and her sister-in-law Bismillah ever got to see were photographs of a few bodies after a month. They still don’t know where police buried their sons. Ameena Bi’s home has just three walls and concrete beams on which the family hopes to put a concrete ceiling and a front wall in the future. “Ghas par padi lashon ki photo the wahi dikahi bas (All we got to see was a picture of bodies lying on the grass),” says Ameena Bi, the more vocal of the two. But, these two women were still better off because their children were among those whose bodies were thrown in the Hindon Canal that were fished out. But, bodies that were tossed in the Ganga Barrage canal could not be retrieved. There were not even photographs or clothes of the dead to identify.
The massacre shook the country. Though some Opposition leaders took it upon themselves to get justice for the victims’ kin, other issues pushed the Hashimpura tragedy out of national conscience. The state cbcid began its probe a year after the massacre and took six years to submit its report. The report was never made public. A petition filed in 1995 in the high court to make the report public is still pending.

Finally in 1997, UP government filed a chargesheet in the court of the Ghaziabad chief judicial magistrate (CJM). Between May 1997 and May 2000, the cjm issued six bailable and 17 non-bailable warrants to produce the accused PAC men in court. The state failed to serve warrants pleading ignorance of its own policemen’s whereabouts while they continued to serve. In June 2000, the accused surrendered when the court threatened to declare them absconders. But they were out on bail in no time.

Then the trial was delayed as the UP government changed prosecutors more than once. After the Supreme Court’s intervention, the case was transferred to Delhi’s Tis Hazari court. When the case came up, the UP police failed to produce the case property, like rifles that were used in the massacre. In another instance, the cbcid told the court that the .303 rifles have been returned to the force.

“How can they do it? The rifles were case property and they deliberately violated even the most rudimentary of prosecution fundamentals,” asks Mohammed Junaid, the lawyer for the victims of Hashimpura. It was mainly because of Junaid’s father Maulana Mohammed Yameen and senior human rights activist Iqbal Ansari that the case came to this stage. While Ansari, a member of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, kept raising the issue at different forums through his writing and otherwise, Yameen doggedly chased the prosecution.

While Ansari and Yameen kept working on the case, the widows and the mothers followed proceedings. Ameena Bi and Bismillah try and attend court. “Bhatak rahe hain insaf ke liye. Yaha Musalmanon ki sunwai hoti kaha hai (We are still running from pillar to post for justice. But nobody listens to Muslims),” says Ameena Bi.

But the sentiment of being forgotten is evident among the bereaved. “Everyone took up the cause of a model who was shot by a leader’s son in Delhi. But nobody raises the incident where many were gunned down by policemen who continue to serve,” says 19-year-old Uzma, who was born the day her father was killed. Now all she and her elder sister Nazneen worry about is to make ends meet.

Though only 11, Faisal’s story is not much different. But his father Zameer, who was lucky enough to be sent to Civil Lines police station that day, was beaten so badly that it took him a few years to recuperate. Scared out of his wits, Zameer left for Saudi Arabia, never to return. In the last 19 years, he has returned just once and that was in the mid-90s. When Zameer was home, he didn’t venture out. After his return to Saudi Arabia, Zameer speaks to Faisal on the phone, sends money, but never talks of coming back. Now Faisal’s grandmother, 60-year-old Zareena, fears for what will happen to Faisal in his father’s absence. Her husband and her other son Javed (13) were killed in the massacre.

Though people in Hashimpura are happy the trial has begun, they don’t want to hazard a guess as to how long it would take for it to finish. “Unnees khooni PAC walon me se teen to mar gaye, ab baki ke zinda rehte hi ho jaye faisla, (Of the 19 PAC accused, three have died, may the judgement come before the rest follow suit),” said Ansari.