The Times of India
5 Aug 2007
A day before the ninth anniversary of the tabling of the Srikrishna Commission Report, Jyoti Punwani explains how successive Maharashtra governments went blatantly easy on the perpetrators of the '93 riots his time it's not elections that have made Muslim leaders fish out the inquiry report from their bagful of long-standing grievances. The rain of sentences in the March 12, 1993 bomb blasts trial has reminded some people about unfinished justice in a matter preceding the underworld's attack on the city.
Like clockwork, things have been set into motion. First, the mandatory trip to the Mantralaya. When the Sena-BJP combine was in power, a Muslim leader grumbled, "Our basic problem with this government is that we just can't approach it. When the Congress was in power, we could at least do that." Since the Congress came to power in October 1999, the 'at least' has changed to 'at the most'.
Vilasrao Deshmukh must be yawning whenever he's told that a Muslim delegation wants to meet him - the same old bunch of obsequious maulanas, journalists and businessmen, trooping in, short on facts but high on their sense of leadership, and then trooping out after being given the same old spiel. When the Congress government replaced the Sena-BJP in '99, the Srikrishna Commission Report was just a year old. Like explorers embarking on a righteous mission, the Nirbhay Bano Andolan, a bunch of inspired youngsters, decided to launch a mass signature campaign. After all, its implementation had been part of the Congress' election manifesto. When they carted the 18,000 postcards to the CM, they took with them the former Chief Secretary, J B D'Souza, and a few victims of the riots.
Deshmukh was then holding his 'Janata Darbar', which meant desperate citizens could stand in line for hours to get three minutes with their chief minister. Jostled around, D'Souza, who had once ruled over Mantralaya, spoke his mind as he always does on the need to do justice. Punish the 31 guilty policemen named in the Report, re-open the cases closed by the police (60% of all riot cases) so that those who killed in the name of religion could be tried, and compensate families of those who went missing in the riots.
The delegation pushed Hajirabi Qureishi forward thinking she was the most deserving of the CM's attention. The emaciated woman in a black burqa, whose husband and son had been dragged away during the riots and never seen again, had not received any compensation. As expected, Deshmukh promised she would get the money and instructed his staff to take down her details.
Seven years later, Hajirabi, who maintained her dignity in the face of the contempt displayed towards her by the CM's staff, is still waiting. Deshmukh, it became clear, was not just clueless about the Report, but unwilling to be clued in. The man who mattered was Chhagan Bhujbal, who, with his axe to grind against the Shiv Sena, would surely implement the Report. Alas, everyone forgot two vital aspects of Bhujbal's personality: He hated Bal Thackeray but believed in his ideology, and like all home ministers he too would protect the police.
When the Srikrishna Report was tabled, Bhujbal was the Leader of the Opposition. "So are you going to launch an agitation on the report?" I'd asked him. "And lose my Hindu voters?" he'd replied incredulously. As home minister, he told the first delegation that met him, "What do you expect? I punish every policeman and make the force my enemy?"
Expectedly, when Bhujbal, prodded by an indignant Chief Justice of India A S Anand, picked a bunch of policemen to implement the Report, his directions were clear - get the Sena leaders, clear the policemen. Against the former, there was hardly any legal evidence. The mass of evidence against the latter was deliberately ignored. Naturally, no one was convicted. If former Mumbai police commissioner R D Tyagi was charge-sheeted for murder, it was again because Justice Anand (who actually read the affidavits presented to the court) named him in court. But Tyagi was discharged without a trial. That was way back in 2003. As late as last week, the government was saying it would consider an appeal.
Nine years since the tabling of the Report, Deshmukh is still going strong. But those fighting for its implementation are tired. So is the Supreme Court. Wily bureaucrats make sure each affidavit is vaguer and if possible, bulkier than the previous one. Faced with the growing mountain of affidavits and replies, bench after bench asks petitioners to simplify matters in table form. Those drafting the tables now know them by heart.
Meanwhile, the cherubic R R Patil has replaced the belligerent Bhujbal. Of him too, people had great hopes. Again, they had to face the bitter truth - Muslims may be a vote bank but whichever the government, the police and the Hindu mobs can get away with murder, specially when acting together against Muslims.
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