New Delhi, Oct 31 (Inditop.com) Two commissions, eight committees and 25 years later, the truth behind the 1984 riots, when over 3,000 Sikhs in the national capital were massacred by organised mobs that trawled the streets for almost four days, has been wilfully buried by the political machinery.
The guilty behind the worst riots since partition are yet to be identified, much less punished.
The story of the investigation has been a glaring example of how the political establishment has used the administrative machinery to obfuscate the truth, protect the guilty and obstruct the course of justice, say lawyers and civil rights activists who have been following the investigation trail.
“Everyone has played along, the judiciary, the administration and the politicians, even as the collective of riot victims look on hopelessly,” exclaims lawyer H.S. Phoolka who has spearheaded one of the longest and most tortuous legal battles to gain justice for riot victims.
Except for a few inconsequential convictions, some who have subsequently been acquitted, not one politician or senior police official has been punished in the pogrom that took place in full public view in the days following the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi on Oct 31, 1984. A majority of cases have led to acquittal.
“There have been just 20 convictions for murder in our long-drawn-out fight for justice. Most of the cases are already over where the accused have been acquitted. Only four to five cases are left now,” adds Phoolka.
In November 1984, civil rights groups including the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) released their explosive report “Who are the Guilty”. Among other things, the report carried an annexure listing the names of the people against whom the victims had levelled allegations.
They included 198 local Congress activists and others, 15 Congress leaders and 143 police officials. The main findings of this report were further substantiated by the report of the Citizens For Democracy and by a citizen’s commission headed by former chief justice of India S.M. Sikri. But their petition for a judicial inquiry was dismissed.
“In the tortuous course of administering justice at every single step a technical flaw or a knot was created, which doomed the next step. And every committee gave birth to another,” the report then damningly noted.
The government, on its part, has only doled out compensation to relatives of those killed in the sectarian violence after a commission headed by retired judge G.T. Nanavati submitted its report in August 2005.
Nanavati claimed in his report that there was evidence against Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and H.K.L. Bhagat for instigating the mobs to attack and kill Sikhs. But the commission failed to pinpoint the role of the Congress functionaries.
“Cases are still pending against Sajjan Kumar and despite the Central Bureau of Investigation wanting to drop charges against Tytler, we are pursuing the case against him,” says senior lawyer Vrinda Grover who has chronicled the various committees and commissions set up since 1984.
“It is a pity that justice has eluded victims in a situation where the killings were in full public view. Not only the perpetrators but also those who masterminded the carnage have got away. Clearly, the present criminal justice system has failed to deliver on mass crime,” she adds.
None of the committees amounted to anything — be it the Ved Marwah Committee set up in November 1984 to probe the role of the police, the Poti-Rosha Committee that recommended registration of cases against Sajjan Kumar or the Jain-Aggarwal Committee that was tasked to find why the police scuttled carnage cases during registration and investigation.
In fact, the Ranganath Misra Commission that was set up in May 1985 concluded there was no evidence of any organised violence against Sikhs and absolved the then Congress government of complicity. Misra later became a Congress MP.
The Kusumlata Mittal- D.K. Kapur Committee was set up in February 1987 to identify delinquent police officers. Mittal in fact recommended severe penalties against 72 erring policemen, including six IPS officers. But the report was suppressed for some inexplicable reason.
Some senior police officers, who remained mute spectators or turned the other way when marauding mobs plundered and raped, says Phoolka, ironically got promotions in spite of the severe indictment by these committees.
Gurcharan Singh Babbar, president of the All India Sikh Conference, wants the Supreme Court to answer for the failure in not taking action against the perpetrators of the 1984 riots.
“If the Supreme Court can take suo motu cognisance of issues like the spread of dengue in Delhi, the sealing of commercial enterprises being run from residential premises, the fodder scam of Bihar and pollution in the Yamuna, isn’t the matter of Sikhs important enough for it to take action?” Babbar asks.
But will it? Twenty-five years later, that continues to be the big question.
