SAHMAT / Communalism Combat - Saturday, 25th of August, 2007, 2pm – 6pm
JUSTICE NOW SRIKRISHNA COMMISSION REPORT BOMBAY RIOTS 1992-93
SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi-110001, India
Tel- 23711276/ 23351424
e-mail-sahmat@vsnl.com
22.8.2007
A Call for Equal Justice for Bombay 1993
SAHMAT and Communalism Combat invite you to attend a meeting to discuss the inaction against perpetrators of the riots in Bombay in 1992/93 and the non-implementation of the Justice Srikrishna Commission recommendations. Speakers include Teesta Setalvad, Rajeev Dhavan, Mahesh Bhatt, Zoya Hasan, Farooq Mapker, Yusuf Muchala and also victims from Bombay.
The death penalties and other convictions awarded to the accused in the 1993 Bombay blasts case are a punishment, a form of redress for the 250 families who lost dear ones in the serial blasts, and a message that the Indian system delivers justice for crimes, especially mass crimes of unspeakable brutality. But the bomb blasts of March 12, 1993 were only the external symptoms of a cancer that had gnawed away at Mumbai's vital organs with the abject failure of the state machinery to protect the city's Muslim population during the horrendous communal riots of December 1992 and January 1993. More than three times as many Mumbaikars were killed in the riots that had preceded the bomb blasts but the lack of action against the perpetrators of the riots, who are named in the Srikrishna report, is clear evidence of the operation of a double standard of justice, one for the majority community and the other for the minorities. India and its institutions of democracy, executive, judiciary and legislature, need to reflect.
The bomb terror of March 12, 1993 must be recalled with the same horror as the mob terror of December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya, resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives all over the country. The causes of the blasts, too, must be revived in public memory. As the Srikrishna report observed: "The serial bomb blasts were a reaction to the totality of events at Ayodhya and Bombay in December 1992 and January 1993… The common link between the riots and the blasts was that of cause and effect."
Information obtained under the Right to Information Act makes it clear that successive state governments, no matter what their political persuasion, have decided to shield the guilty. The motivations of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena parties in refusing to implement the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission are obvious:
among the individuals named in the report are several of their leaders and cadres, including Bal Thackeray, Manohar Joshi, Gopinath Munde and Madhukar Sarpotdar. What is more shocking is the role of the so-called secular parties.
Though the manifestos of both the Congress Party and the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 and 2004 promised to implement the recommendations of the report, these promises remain unfulfilled.
Vivan Sundaram, Ram Rahman, M.K.Raina
Saturday, 25th of August, 2pm – 6pm
At Muktadhara Auditorium, Banga Sanskriti Bhawan, 18-19 Bhai Veer Singh Marg, New Delhi-110001 ( Near Gole Market)
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