(Asian Age
9 Aug., 2007)
Plea to reopen top cop case
by OLGA TELLIS
Mumbai, Aug. 8: Among the cases of the 1992-93 riots that are sought to be reopened is the one of former joint commissioner of police R.D. Tyagi, who gave the order to shoot at Suleman Bakery. The shooting resulted in the deaths of nine people and several arrests.
Muslim leaders have been taking delegations to meet Maharashtra deputy chief minister and home minister R.R. Patil to demand the implementation of the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission report.
The Srikrishna Commission report comments: "The responsibility for this incident must squarely fall on joint commissioner of police R.D. Tyagi, who was overall in-charge of the operations at Suleman Bakery, and assistant police inspector Deshmukh and police inspector Lahane, who were leading the special operations squad (SOS)."
Yet Mr Tyagi is a free man who, on retirement from the force, joined the Shiv Sena and even fought an election on a Sena ticket. But he lost badly. The irony is that the Special Task Force appointed to go into the incident has concluded that the FIR lodged by the police is false and they lodged a new FIR. However, the government has completely shelved the task force report and has upheld the "false complaint" made by the police. The result is that over 40 arrested people have been going to court for hearings for the last 14 years and are facing harassment.
The Srikrishna Commission report very clearly says: "This is one incident where the police appeared to be utterly trigger-happy and used force utterly disproportionate to meet the apprehensions of private firing, assuming there was one. The story put forward by the police that they met with armed resistance from the persons on the roof of the bakery, hiding behind the water tank, is unbelievable. It says the post-mortem reports of the nine dead bodies do not indicate that the persons were hit by bullets while facing and confronting the police. On the contrary, they are suggestive of the victims being shot in the back while trying to flee."
This is the opinion of the forensic expert, Dr Pritam Phatnani, appointed as an expert assessor by the commission: That the persons were cowering behind the water tanks was an understandable normal reaction of any person faced with a storming contingent of armed police.
The report says that "the public witnesses examined have given graphic accounts as to how the inmates, who were unarmed, were shot down in virtually cold blood. That some of them jumped over the Chunabhatti Masjid premises and made their escape does not support the theory that they were terrorists, or that they were carrying ‘deadly firearms’. The police recovered no firearms whatsoever. All that they claim to have recovered was one spent shell of an AK-47 rifle. This perhaps came from the AK-47 rifle carried by one of the SOS personnel." In fact, the report observes that "the utter disappointment of Tyagi is seen when he admits that, to the extent the operation failed to apprehend the miscreants firing at the police, he was not satisfied with the implementation of his instructions. Tyagi was also surprised as to how 78 persons could have been flushed out and arrested from the bakery, which was so narrow and congested. Though there is a statement that one constable Chander Tukaram Sanmukh has recovered eight swords from under the water tank on the roof, this recovery is also doubtful as no panchnama has been made at all about this recovery."
The evidence of the students and teachers of the Madrasa-e-Darul-Uloom Imdadiya appears consistent and leads the commission to the conclusion that the policemen who barged into the Suleman Bakery, and thereafter stormed into the Chunabhatti Masjid and madrasa, went on the rampage, assaulting the inmates there. It also appears that there was indiscriminate and callous police firing resulting in nine casualties.
The commission is not at all satisfied with the version of the police. Even assuming some element of truth in the version of the police, that there was private firing in the incident, it was not as serious as is sought to be made out. The commission feels that the police was influenced by exaggerated rumours of attacks using sophisticated firearms, and the consequent fear psychosis caused them to shoot to kill. The result: Nine innocent people killed in the Suleman Bakery and the adjoining premises.
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