India: When Even Memory of a Riot Dies [1992–93 Mumbai riots] | Jyoti Punwani

Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 52, Issue No. 48, 02 Dec, 2017

When Even Memory of a Riot Dies

Jyoti Punwani (jyoti.punwani[at]gmail.com) is a Mumbai-based journalist.

Although the 1992–93 Mumbai riots, following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, were investigated by an inquiry commission headed by Justice B N Srikrishna, there have been hardly any convictions even as some victims doggedly fight on for justice. This article traces the journey for justice of victims of the Bombay riots in the face of the indifference of successive state governments and the convoluted justice system.

In October 2017, a familiar scene played out in a sessions court in Mumbai. A constable informed the judge that the police had not been able to trace the complainant. A new date was given, and the accused in the case trooped out. The complainant was a policeman, no longer residing at his old address. With their vast resources, the Mumbai Police had not been able to trace one of their own, who, just six years back, had been an assistant commissioner of police (ACP).

But the public prosecutor was not unduly perturbed, for this was just one of the many cases he had to handle. In fact, he saw this one as a burden on him, given that it was almost 25 years old.

A year ago the same case was being heard in another court. At that time, it was the investigating officer who could not be traced. His house was locked; long retired, he was visiting his daughter in the United States (US). After some weeks, the public prosecutor urged the judge to issue a warrant against him. But on whom would it be served?

Mysteriously, on the next date, the investigating officer who had apparently gone to the US, returned. But he was of no help in tracing the case files. He knew little of the many twists and turns it had taken, he shrugged. Before the next date could arrive, the case was transferred to another court, and within a few months, to yet another, where it is currently listed.

The accused in this case are serving policemen.

This story of the murder case against Ram Dev Tyagi, Mumbai’s former Police Commissioner, tells you why the families of the 900 persons who were killed in the post-Babri Masjid demolition riots in Mumbai in 1992–93, have yet to get justice, despite a judicial commission of inquiry recording in meticulous detail who was responsible. It was not the usual delays of the legal system that made the victims lose hope, but the deliberate scuttling of the judicial process.

Slow to Act on Promises

It has been 19 years, but one still remembers the shock and euphoria that greeted the tabling of the Justice B N Srikrishna Commission of Inquiry Report on the December 1992–January 1993 Bombay riots, on 6 August 1998. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray was then the “remote control” of the state, as his party was in power as the senior partner in a coalition government with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But that had not deterred Justice Srikrishna from naming Thackeray as responsible for the anti-Muslim violence in the second phase of the riots (Government of Maharashtra 1998). The commission had also recommended strict action against 31 policemen, indicted for crimes ranging from cold-blooded murder of innocents to inhuman conduct to shielding rioters. The most senior in that list was Tyagi (Government of Maharashtra 1998). With the Sena–BJP government in power, it was evident that the Srikrishna report would not be implemented. Indeed, the then Chief Minister Manohar Joshi only tabled the report in the assembly after being compelled to do so by the Bombay High Court. Along with the report, he also filed an action taken report (ATR) in which the commission’s main findings were rejected.

Yet the excitement created by the Srikrishna Commission’s report did not let matters end there. As copies of the report fell short—the government had printed only enough to distribute in the assembly—private citizens reprinted it. Its findings were publicised in Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu; protest meetings were held, and a Congress social worker, Naseem Arif Khan, filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking for its implementation.

In 1999, the Sena–BJP government was replaced by another coalition government comprising of the Congress party, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the Samajwadi Party (SP). However, although both the Congress and the NCP had made implementation of the Srikrishna Commission Report an election promise, in the Supreme Court the government counsel refused to declare unequivocally that the government had accepted the report. After repeated questioning by the Court, he said the report would be referred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for further investigation and action (Telegraph 2000). Two of the 31 indicted policemen were then in the CID.

As the government’s ambivalence became clear, public pressure continued. The Nirbhay Bano Andolan sent 20,000 postcards to the chief minister. The Lawyers Legal Aid Committee, which had appeared before the commission, intervened in the case. Its affidavit prompted the then Chief Justice A S Anand to ask the government what action had been taken against Tyagi. His obvious displeasure led to the setting up of a Special Task Force (STF) comprising hand-picked police officers in August 2000, and the filing of a case of murder in 2001 against the former police commissioner and 17 policemen who had, under his command, carried out a raid that had left eight innocents dead.

Why was the Congress–NCP government unwilling to implement the Srikrishna Commission Report?

Unwilling to Act

An inkling of this unwillingness was visible on the day the report was tabled in the assembly and simultaneously rejected. This author asked the then leader of the opposition Chhagan Bhujbal whether his party, the Congress, would launch an agitation for the report’s implementation. “What? And risk the Hindu vote?” he retorted. But after the party won the election and formed the government with the NCP, and the danger of losing the Hindu vote no longer existed, why did it continue to drag its feet over the report’s findings?

There were two reasons for the dilly- dallying. First, Bhujbal held the portfolio as the state’s home minister. He was the one who would have had to take the decisions required to act on the report’s findings. This former Shiv Sainik’s indifference to the report has been mentioned above.

The second reason was the Congress’s tilt towards Hindutva, which was evident in front of the commission. On every matter of importance, from the causes of the riots to the conduct of the police, its submissions by and large reflected the stand taken by the Shiv Sena. In the Bombay High Court, the government’s counsel even defended Thackeray’s inflammatory editorials in the party’s mouthpiece, the Marathi daily Saamna, written during the riots.

To implement the report, the government would have had to reopen 1,358 closed cases (60%) of all riot cases. In many, though not all of these, the accused were Shiv Sainiks. To show the Supreme Court that action was being taken, the STF reopened five cases. This kind of tokenism resulted in acquittals or the cases being closed again. Meanwhile, the Congress welcomed into its ranks Shiv Sainiks, including riot accused, whose names had featured in the report (Telegraph 2005).

Implementing the report would also have meant taking “strict action’’ against the 31 indicted policemen. The government did take action. The STF took legal action against nine of them, eight were charged with murder, of whom six were acquitted. The acquittal was a foregone conclusion since no one was willing to testify in this case. The remaining two were discharged (with help from the STF as will be shown below). One was charged with minor offences. Departmental action was taken against nine others. These actions included “a reprimand,’’ “compulsory retirement,’’ and “increments stopped for two years.’’ No one cared to find out whether such “punishments,’’ mentioned in government affidavits in the Supreme Court, had actually been meted out. One of these policemen died and one had been punished before the report came out. Finally, overruling the findings of a judicial commission comprising a sitting high court judge, the STF exonerated the remaining 11, without even talking to their victims who had testified in front of the commission.

Almost all governments tend to ignore the long-term recommendations of judicial commissions, because they involve altering the functioning of the police. The state government in power then also ignored the Srikrishna Commission’s recommendations on prevention and control of riots, such as punitive measures against policemen for failed prosecutions and closed cases. It also showed no interest in implementing even politically harmless recommendations such as compensating the families of the 165 missing persons of the riots, many of whom were Hindus. [. . .]

FULL TEXT AT: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/48/25-years-after-babri-masjid/when-even-memory-riot-dies.html