Three words describe the recent judgment of the Meerut court on the Maliana massacre of May 23, 1987, in which 72 people – all Muslims – were killed. These three words are: “miscarriage of justice”.

After more than 800 hearings over three decades, the local court of additional district judge Lakhvinder Singh Sood on Friday, March 31, 2023, set free the 40 people accused of the massacre on the grounds of inadequate evidence against them.

The Maliana case originally involved 93 accused. In the 36 years since the carnage, many of the accused died, while others “could not be traced”, leaving just 40 to face trial.

As atrocious as the verdict is, however, the entire case has been a travesty of justice, right from the moment 36 years ago when the first information report (FIR) was filed.

The 1987 Meerut riots

The Maliana massacre took place against the backdrop of the riots in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh, in May 1987. In what was supposedly a reaction to the opening of the disputed Babri Masjid in 1986, mobs of Hindus and Muslims clashed in Meerut city on May 17. Two days later, when curfew was imposed in the city, the state government sent 11 companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) to help the local police keep the peace. However, according to the local media at the time and later, the investigations by national media as well as non-governmental organisations, the PAC started attacking Muslims across the district instead.

On May 22, the PAC descended on the Hashimpura mohalla of Meerut and took away a large number of people in trucks while also looting and burning houses and shops. While some of the people taken away were sent to jails in Meerut and Fategarh, 42 Muslims were taken to the Upper Ganga canal at Muradnagar in Ghaziabad and the Hindon River near the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi border, where they were shot and killed. Their bodies were then thrown into the water. Meanwhile, 11 of the people placed in the Meerut and Fatehgarh jails died in custody.

The PAC arrived in Maliana the next day. Eye witnesses reported: “The PAC, led by senior officers including the commandant of the 44th battalion, R.D. Tripathi, entered Maliana about 2.30 pm on May 23, 1987, and killed more than 70 Muslims.”

Hundreds of locals accompanied the PAC contingent who entered Maliana with guns and swords. All the five entry and exit points of the locality were blocked before 72 people were killed. According to eyewitnesses, “death was raining from all sides and no one was spared, including children and women.”

Deliberate disarray

Since the carnage had been carried out by the police themselves, no first information report (FIR) was filed until Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister of India, visited Maliana along with the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Vir Bahadur Singh.

When Gandhi asked for investigations and reports, one Yaqub Ali, a resident of Maliana who had been severely injured in the attack, was compelled by the police to sign a document that he later learned was an FIR. This ‘FIR’ listed 93 people as the accused in the massacre, all of them local people. No police personnel were named.

“I was one of those who were rounded up and mercilessly beaten when, without any provocation, the PAC men began attacking houses while the mob indulged in looting and rioting,” Yaqub Ali said.

He added: “My ribs were broken and I was in intense pain. I was made to sign the police complaint and didn’t even know what was written in it. It was much later that I learned that 93 Hindus had attacked us. The role of the PAC men has not even been mentioned.”

The names of the 93 accused were apparently lifted from the voter list of the area. While some of those named as accused had indeed participated in the massacre, many others had not. When the police began to seek these 93 people to arrest them, it was learned that some of them had died long before May 23, 1987. Others died in the midst of the proceedings of the case and still others went missing.

Alauddin Siddiqui, the lawyer representing the victims’ families told The Wire, “[The verdict] is an abrupt decision at a time when proceedings were still on. Hearing on the 36 post-mortems had not taken place and the accused had not been examined under Section 313 of the Criminal Code of Procedure (power of the court to examine the accused to explain evidence adduced against him).”

Even the witnesses had not been carefully questioned. Fewer than 10 eye witnesses were examined in court, though there were 35 witnesses in all. 

Additional district counsel Mohan said, “There were several reasons spelled out for the acquittal. First, the police had not conducted an identification parade of the accused. Secondly, the police had allegedly put 93 random names from the voter list, including those who had died years prior to the carnage. Then, no weapon was recovered from the site.”

Mysterious investigations

A few days after the massacre, Vir Bahadur Singh officially  declared 10 people dead. The next day, the district magistrate claimed 12 people had been killed, but in the first week of June 1987, after several bodies were found in a well, he accepted that 15 people had been killed. Altogether, the state government accepted 56 deaths in Maliana and provided the victims’ families with compensation of Rs 20,000. Years later, a further Rs 20,000 was added to this meagre amount, bringing the total to Rs 40,000.

On May 27, 1987, Vir Bahadur Singh announced a judicial inquiry into the Maliana killings under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952. The inquiry was finally ordered on August 27, 1987, by Justice G.L. Srivastava, a retired judge of the Allahabad high court. On May 29, 1987, the UP government announced the suspension of the PAC commandant R.D. Tripathi, who ordered the firing in Maliana. Interestingly, allegations had also been made against Tripathi during the 1982 Meerut riots. However, despite his involvement in the Maliani massacre, R.D. Tripathi was never suspended. Instead, he was awarded promotions in the service till his retirement.

The examination of witnesses from Maliana was hindered by the continued presence of the PAC. Finally, in January 1988, the Srivastava Commission ordered the government to remove the PAC. Altogether, 84 public witnesses – 70 Muslims and 14 Hindus – were examined by the commission, in addition to five witnesses from the administration. But it appeared that the commission’s proceedings had been affected by apathy and indifference. When it finally submitted its report on July 31, 1989, it was never made public.

While the Srivastava Commission worked on the Maliana case, the Uttar Pradesh government ordered an administrative inquiry into the riots that had taken place in Meerut between May 18 and 23, 1987. However, it excluded the events in Maliana and the custodial killings in the Meerut and Fatehgarh jails.

The panel, headed by Gian Prakash, the former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, consisted of Ghulam Ahmad, a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) official and a former vice-chancellor of Avadh University, and Ram Krishan of the IAS who at that time was the secretary at the Public Works Department.

The panel was asked to submit its report within 30 days, which it did. On the grounds that the inquiry was of an administrative nature ordered for its own purposes, the government did not place its report before the legislature or public. However, The Telegraph, the Kolkata-based daily, published the entire report in November 1987. It threw no light on the events of May 23.

PIL for justice

After 34 years had passed without any movement on the Maliana case, I filed a public interest litigation (PIL) before the division bench of the Allahabad high court on April 19, 2021, together with Indian Police Service officer Vibhuti Narain Rai, a former director general of the Uttar Pradesh police.

Our co-petitioners were Ismail, a victim of the Maliana massacre who lost 11 members of his family on May 23, 1987, and lawyer M.A. Rashid, who conducted the case in a Meerut trial court.

In the PIL, we said that more than three decades on, the Maliana massacre case and other custodial killings in Meerut during the 1987 riots had not progressed much since key court papers, including the FIR, had mysteriously gone missing. We also accused the Uttar Pradesh police and PAC personnel of intimidating victims and witnesses into not deposing and asked for either the release of the Srivastava Commission report or for the judges to request a copy of the report in a sealed cover.

We also pleaded for the establishment of a special investigation team to look into the events of 23 May, 1987, and conduct a fair and speedy trial, and sought adequate compensation for the families of the victims. In 2018, after 16 police personnel were convicted in the Hashimpura case, the families of the 42 Muslims killed received Rs 20 lakhs each as compensation because the killings had been carried out by the police. However, since there is no mention of police personnel in the FIR signed by Yaqub Ali, the families of the Maliana victims received only Rs 40,000 each.

After hearing the PIL, Justice Sanjay Yadav, the then acting chief justice of the Allahabad high court, and Justice Prakash Padia ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to file a counter-affidavit. “Taking into consideration the grievance raised in the petition and the relief sought, we call upon the State to file the counter affidavit and para-wise reply to the writ petition,” the order said.

Noted human rights activist and senior Supreme Court lawyer Colin Gonsalves appeared for us in the case. The PIL is still pending in the Allahabad high court, awaiting the final outcome. Now that the Meerut verdict has acquitted the accused, it is possible that the state government will request the court to close the case.

However, the people of Maliana refuse to accept the May 31 verdict of the Meerut court. They will soon challenge the verdict in the Allahabad high court.

Qurban Ali writer is a senior journalist who covered the Meerut-Maliana riots of 1987 and was an eyewitness to many incidents.

The post In the Case of the Maliana Massacre, Justice Both Delayed and Denied appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Communal riots in India are not a new thing. In the last sixty years of independent India, riots have taken place intermittently almost every year in some part of the country or the other. The first major communal riots broke out in independent India in 1961 in Jabalpur (M.P.), during the prime ministership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Then there was the horrendous communal riots in Ahmedabad, in 1969 where more than 600, followed by major riots in Aligarh in 1978, Jamshedpur in April 1979, Moradabad in 1980, Meerut in 1982 and 1987 and Bhagalpur in 1989 respectively.

It is interesting to note that in most of the communal riots, right-wing Hindutva organisations like the RSS, Jana Sangh and its fraternal organisations like VHP, Bajrang Dal etc., were involved and their role was mentioned by various judicial and non-judicial commissions established by the state and central governments to probe these riots.

What was more disturbing was the communal role of the police and paramilitary forces like the Provincial Armed Constabulary (P.A.C.) in U.P. and Bihar Military Police (B.M.P) in Bihar. During the Janata Party rule (1977-79) at the Centre as well as in states like U.P. and Bihar, when RSS members were part of the government and were holding important portfolios, their role was criticised in Parliament bitterly.

There were some very interesting debates over communalism and communal riots in India in both houses of Parliament, i.e., Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, from November 1978 to July 1979. The first debate over the situation arising out of communal riots in different parts of the country, particularly in Aligarh, took place in the Rajya Sabha on 20th and 21st November 1978, in the Lok Sabha on 4th and 5th December 1978, and again in Rajya Sabha on 11th July 1979, in which the roles of RSS and PAC in U.P. and of the Bihar Military Police in Bihar were discussed at length. 

In the debate held in Lok Sabha in December 1978, former Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, leader of the opposition Y.B. Chavan, the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai, and many other veteran parliamentarians participated. Prime Minister Desai conceded on the floor of the house that U.P. PAC committed excesses against Muslims during 1978 communal riots in Aligarh.

It is also interesting to note that the 1969 Ahmedabad riots between Hindus and Muslims that occurred near Jagannath Temple in September and later spread to 25 other localities were masterminded by Hindutva forces. According to the findings of an inquiry by the Commission of Justice P. Jaganmohan Reddy, “It is alleged that handbills calling for a religious war were distributed to the rioters by the Jan Sangh and the RSS.” The havoc was caused by rumours, patrikas, writings on blackboards and provocative newspaper reports.

The inquiry commission recommended that the special branch of the Gujarat police needed to be reorganised. It is said that even the ruling Congress party was not far behind in spreading communal feelings. Most Congressmen participated directly or indirectly in the riots and called the Muslims anti-national. The Hindu Dharma Rakshak Samiti was formed at this time. Its members were largely middle-class Hindus. Ahmedabad’s textile industry, which provided large-scale employment opportunities for Hindus and Muslims, was facing a crisis, and there was a strong rivalry between the Hindu and Muslim workers in this industry. The relief work that followed the riots was not efficient and the general attitude towards the riot victims was unsympathetic.

Communal riots in Aligarh have been a routine affair since 1962. During October 1978, communal disturbances in Aligarh resulted in more than 30 people being killed, most of whom were Muslims. According to a People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) report: “These riots were caused by a series of tension-ridden events which were allowed to develop from June 1978, both by the local Janata Party leaders (mostly of RSS-Jan Sangh background) and the city administration. It reached the tragic climax on October 5, 1978, when Hindu communalists ran berserk against poor Muslims. The Provincial Armed Constabulary of Uttar Pradesh echoed the same Hindu communal sentiments by shooting down and killing innocent and unarmed Muslims.”

The enquiry team of PUCL put the blame squarely on the RSS-Jan Sangh and more significantly, on the “differences and jockeying for power among local politicians”. The report of the enquiry team underlined a malignant trend. Even in law-enforcing agencies like the PAC, political pressure played a powerful role. The team discovered that political pressure on the district magistrate of Aligarh was sufficient to neutralise his efforts to be firm with those bent on disturbing communal harmony. The PAC, the study reported, “betrayed an unmistakably Hindu communal bias by shooting innocent Muslims”.

Even when judicial inquiries were ordered, the results were so inconclusive that any attempt to find the guilty elements was negated. The Mathur Commission, for instance, took three years to write its report on the causes and consequences of the 1971 Aligarh riots.

After the October 1978 communal incidents in Aligarh, a four-member National Minority Commission submitted a 20-page report to the then Home Minister, Charan Singh. The report recommended the immediate withdrawal of the PAC from Aligarh, suggested a complete overhaul of the force, and advocated the induction of persons from the minority community into it. The then Petroleum Minister, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna followed this up with a plea for a special task force comprising of Muslims and Harijans to deal with violent agitations with communal overtones.

During a Ram Navami procession in April 1979, major communal riots broke out in Jamshedpur, Bihar, killing more than 120 people, more than half of them Muslims. The local MLA (Dinanath Pandey from erstwhile Jansangh-RSS background) played an active role in provoking the riots. The Inquiry Commission headed by Justice Jitendra Narain concluded that the RSS, with its extensive organisation in Jamshedpur and close links with the Janata Party and the BMS, had a hand in creating a climate propitious for the outbreak of these disturbances. It further said that not a single Hindu was killed by the Bihar Military Police (BMP) in 22 hours of firing resorted to for quelling the riots. The then Minorities Chairman, Justice M.R.A. Ansari, an outspoken former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, alleged the involvement of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in these riots, which he said were pre-planned.

In this background, the debate over communal riots in both houses of Parliament was very revealing and eye-opening. Many important and veteran parliamentarians from both the ruling as well as opposition parties participated in it.

For detailed excerpts from the debates in both Houses of Parliament click here.

Related:

‘No riot can last for more than 24 hours unless the state wants it to continue’
Student has to have his hand amputated following police action: AMU

The post Role of RSS & police in communal riots, Aligarh: Parliamentary debates appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A division Bench of the Allahabad High Court on April 19, 2021 passed an order directing the state of Uttar Pradesh to file a reply as a counter-affidavit to a writ petition filed by senior journalist Qurban Ali, who witnessed and covered the massacre of 72 Muslims in Maliana village in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh on May 23, 1987.  The other petitioner, in this case, is Vibhuti Narain Rai, IPS, former Director-General of Police (DGP) Uttar Pradesh, a victim Ismail, who lost eleven family members and a lawyer Rashid, who conducted the case in a trial court in Meerut. The petitioners pointed out that for over three decades the trial court at Meerut was at a standstill because the court papers, including the FIR of the case, were mysteriously missing. In the meantime, UP Police and PAC personnel were accused of intimidating victims and witnesses not to depose. The trial has been going on in the Maliana case in a session court in Meerut for the last 34 years. According to the petitioners, in this case, key documents, including the FIR, have gone missing, more than 800 dates have been given since proceedings began. The last hearing took place four years ago!

In a parallel case of Hasimpura, where more than fifty Muslim youths were picked up by the UP Police and PAC on May 22, 1987, and later were killed in cold blood at the upper Ganga Canal in Murad Nagar and at Hindon river near the UP-Delhi border, the case was transferred to Delhi. The Delhi High Court ultimately convicted sixteen accused PAC personnel and sentenced them to life imprisonment on October 31, 2018.

Though the counsel for the state argued in the Meerit-Maliana case, that the case was very old and there was no merit in the case, the Allahabad High court division bench insisted that the State should file a counter-affidavit. Noted human rights activist and senior Supreme Court lawyer Colin Gonsalves appeared on behalf of the petitioners. 

Maliana Case, 1987, Looking Back 34 years later

Maliana-Meerut Carnage, May 23, 1987

May 23, 2021 was the 34th anniversary of the ghastly killings in a village of Meerut district in which more than seventy-two Muslims were killed by the U.P.s notorious Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and other custodial killings of more than 12 Muslims in Meerut and Fatehgarh jails. There has been no justice even after three decades.

This is a saga of a carnage that occurred almost 34 years ago during the Meerut riots of 1987. The three-month-long intermittent rioting in Meerut (May-July, 1987) resulted, according to government estimates, in the death of 174 persons and injuries to 171. According to the various studies and reports, it can be safely ascertained that the rioting in Meerut during April-May, 1987 actually left 250 dead and property worth of more than Rs. 10 crores destroyed – staggering figures, indeed.

The events that led to the horrendous Meerut riots in April-May-June, 1987 were as follows: On  April 14, 1987 when the Nauchandi fair was in full bloom, communal violence broke out. It is said that a police sub-inspector, on duty, was struck by a firecracker and as he was drunk he opened fire, killing two Muslims. Another incident is also reported to have occurred on the same day. Muslims had arranged a religious sermon near the Hashimpura crossing close to the location of another function a Mundan in Purwa Shaikhlal of a Hindu family. Some Muslims objected to film songs being played on loudspeakers which led to a quarrel. 

Somebody from the Hindu side allegedly fired. The Muslims than in return set some Hindus shops to fire. All in all 12 persons, both Hindus and Muslims, were reported to have been killed. Curfew was imposed and the situation was controlled. However, the tension prevailed and both sides were bent on causing further trouble. This started the three-month-long intermittent rioting in Meerut which resulted, according to government estimates, in the death of 174 people and injuries to 171. In fact, the loss was far more grievous. According to the various studies and reports it can be safely asserted that the rioting in Meerut during these three months actually left 350 dead and property worth crores destroyed.

On May 17, 1987, the incidents that led to the riots and then to the Hashimpura massacre and Maliana carnage took place in Kainchiyan Mohalla. By the next day, the riots had spread first to Hapur Road and Pilokheri and then to other areas. On May 19, a curfew was imposed throughout the city. To an estimated 60,000 strong local police, 11 companies of PAC were added. After the armed police established ‘law and order’, the character of the riots completely transformed. 

In the initial phase, the riots were a confrontation between Hindus and Muslims, in which mobs attacked and killed each other. It is said that more Hindus appear to have been killed in this phase. But later on, after May 22, the riots ceased to be riots and became Police-PAC violence directed against Muslims. On that day PAC indulged in large-scale arson, looting, and burning in Hashimpura and proceeded the next day on the outskirts of the city in Maliana on May 23, 1987.

From May 19 to 23, the entire town of Meerut was under a curfew. On May 22, Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) rounded up several hundred Muslim men in the Hashimpura area of Meerut. Though not clear, it seems that some decision was taken at the ‘top’ to spread terror in the Hashimpura area. Pursuant to this on May 22, Hashimpura was surrounded by the PAC and the Army. The PAC then forced all residents out of their houses to the main Road. Then a house to house search was conducted. All residents were lined up on the main road and about 50 of them were asked to board a PAC truck. Another group of 324 were arrested and taken by other police vehicles. Most of the arrested were taken to the police station or jail but around a hundred men were driven to the Upper Ganga Canal. Once at the canal, the PAC lined up the man, shot them one by one, and threw their bodies in the water. The floating bodies were discovered after a few days, and two survivors chronicled the massacre. The Times of India commented:  “Here is a clear case of an organ of the state going out with cold-blooded calculation to raid and roundup a whole group of citizens, whisk them away, shoot them while in custody and then throw their bodies into the river.” The Hashimpura mass targeted killings is one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the Indian state depicting a callousness of unprecedented proportions. It was also an incident of mass custodial killing in the history of independent India.

What the police did in Hashimpura is something that can never be lived down and the shame of this will continue to haunt any civilised Government. The way the residents of Hashimpura were treated was shameful. Hundreds of people were taken out from the locality and asked to sit on the road. Army personnel segregated men over 50 years of age as well as those under 12 to one side of the road and dumped the rest into waiting trucks. Out of 42, only 6 persons were traceable, others seem to have vanished into thin air.

They were arrested together and taken in a truck to Muradnagar and when the truck reached the upper Ganga canal, they were shot by the PAC and their bodies thrown into the canal. More than 20 bodies were found floating in the canal. The second installment of the same incident took place after an hour or so at the Hindon river near the Delhi-U.P. border where the rest of the Muslim youth arrested from Hashimpura were killed at point-blank range and their bodies dumped in a similar manner.

The following day, the PAC arrived in the village of Maliana, under the pretext that Muslims from Meerut were hiding in the area. The PAC went on a Rampage, deliberately shooting unarmed men, women and children and burning some of the victims alive in their own houses. Eighty (80) bodies were found in the area believed to be those of victims of these killings. 

An exact count of the number of dead as the result of the Meerut/Maliana massacre is still not known, although most experts agree that dozens of people were killed. According to official figures, from May 19 to 23, 117 people were killed, 159 persons injured, and 623 houses, 344 shops and 14 factories were looted, burned and destroyed. Another report notes that in the first three or four days of the riot, 51 Hindus were killed, and from May 21 to 25 at least 295 Muslims were killed, almost all by or under the active supervision of the police and the PAC. Violence, including bomb explosions and isolated incidents of killing and stabbing, continued until June 15. Those killed in the Meerut/Maliana massacre were Muslims. Their guilt or innocence of any kind was never an issue. Rather, the men who were killed at the upper Ganga Canal were picked up and arrested for one reason: They were Muslims. In Maliana, the killings were carried out in an entirely indiscriminate manner, with no regard for the gender or age of the victims. The Meerut/Maliana massacre was a genocidal massacre targeted against a particular ethno-religious group, clear and simple.

The initial response of the government to the massacres at Meerut and Maliana was one of denial, followed by attempts to cover up the crime. According to an official estimate, 42 Muslim youths were massacred in Hashimpura on May 22/23, 1987 and 72 Muslims were killed, by the 44th battalion of PAC led by Commandant R D Tripathi the next day on May 23/24, 1987.

After a prolonged court process of more than thirty years, Delhi high court pronounced its judgment in the Hashimpura massacre case on October 31, 2018. It overturned a trial court’s decision to acquit 16 policemen of charges of murder and other crimes in the 1987 Hashimpura case in which 42 people were killed. The high court convicted the 16 Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) officials charged, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel reversed a trial court’s verdict which had acquitted the accused. The high court termed the massacre “targeted killing” of unarmed and defenceless people by the police. While sentencing all the convicts to life imprisonment, the court said the families of the victims had to wait 31 years to get justice and monetary relief cannot compensate for their loss.

Finally, though partial justice was done, the process has still left many questions unanswered:

What about the Maliana killings where 72 Muslims were killed by the 44th battalion of PAC led by Commandant R D Tripathi on May 23rd 1987? These incidents took place the day following the Hashimpura killings.

Attitude of the Central Government and agencies

The then central government headed by Rajiv Gandhi ordered a CBI inquiry in the abduction and shooting of people at the Ganga canal. CBI began its inquiry on June 28, 1987, and after a thorough inquiry submitted its report. However, the report was never made officially public. A Crime Branch-Central Investigation Department inquiry headed by Jangi Singh, DIG Police, Uttar Pradesh began its probe into the Muradnagar canal incident on June 4, 1987. Its report was submitted to the state government in October 1994 and it recommended prosecuting 37 PAC personnel and police officers. On June 1, 1995, the then Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government of UP gave permission to prosecute 19 out of 37 of those accused. Finally, it was in 1996 when a charge sheet was filed with the chief judicial magistrate of  Ghaziabad under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code. It was Mayawati’s government which on 20 May 1997, gave the permission to prosecute the remaining 18 officials. Bailable warrants were issued 23 times followed by non-bailable warrants 17 times against these accused but none of them appeared before the court of law until 2000. 

In the year 2000, 16 accused PAC men surrendered before the Ghaziabad court, got bail, and went back to resume their service. Disappointed with undue delay in the proceedings of the Ghaziabad court, kin of the victims and survivors filed a petition with Supreme Court praying to transfer the case to Delhi as the conditions in Delhi would be more conducive. The Supreme Court granted this prayer in 2002. Thereafter, the case was transferred to Tees Hazari court in Delhi. But the case couldn’t start before November 2004 because the Uttar Pradesh state government did not appoint a public prosecutor for the case.

Finally after a long legal battle the Additional Sessions Judge, at Tees Hazari Court, Delhi while delivering the judgment dated 21 March 2015, on the completion of trial of the accused, held that the evidence adduced by the prosecution was not sufficient to record the guilt for the offenses the accused persons had been charged with. It was further stated that it was painful to observe that several innocent persons had been traumatised and their lives had been taken by the State agency but the investigation agency, as well as the prosecution, had failed to bring on record the reliable material to establish the identity of culprits. The accused persons facing trial are entitled to benefit of doubt existing in the case of the prosecution. With these directions, the Court acquitted all the accused persons of the charges framed against them.

The UP government challenged the verdict of session court in Delhi High Court and finally the Delhi high court on October 31, 2018, overturned trial court’s decision to acquit 16 policemen of charges of murder and other crimes in the 1987 Hashimpura case in which 42 people were killed. The high court convicted the 16 Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel charged, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel of the Delhi high court termed the massacre as “targeted killing of unarmed and defenseless people by the police”. 

While sentencing all the convicts to life imprisonment, the court said the families of the victims had to wait 31 years to get justice and monetary relief cannot compensate for their loss. All the 16 convicts have retired from service by then. By this 2018 verdict from the Delhi high court judgment partial justice was delivered in the Hashimpura massacre case. Many questions were still left unanswered. What about Maliana where 72 Muslims were killed by the 44th battalion of PAC led by Commandant R D Tripathi on May 23, 1987?

An FIR on this massacre was lodged but unfortunately, there is no mention of the PAC personnel in the FIR. With a “shoddy” investigation by the State agency and a weak charge sheet by the prosecution, Maliana’s Muslims feel they will not get justice, just as the victims of Hashimpura got on 31st October 2018 by Delhi High Court. 

The trial in this case has not even crossed the first stage. In the past 34 years, 800 dates have been fixed for the hearing, but only three of the 35 prosecution witnesses have been examined by the Meerut court. The last hearing was held almost four years ago. The case is pending before the Session court of Meerut.

The laxity of the prosecution can be gauged from the fact that the main FIR, the basis of the entire case against 95 rioters from the nearby villages, suddenly “disappeared” in 2010. The session’s court in Meerut refused to go ahead with the trial without a copy of the FIR and a “search” for the FIR is still on.

According to eyewitnesses “the PAC led by senior officers including the Commandant of the 44th battalion RD Tripathi entered Maliana about 2.30 pm on May 23, 1987 and killed more than 70 Muslims. The then Chief Minister Vir Bahadur Singh officially declared 10 people dead. The District Magistrate said 12 were killed in Maliana but later he accepted in the first week of June 1987, that 15 people were killed by Police and PAC. Several bodies were also found in a well.

On May 27, 1987, the then U.P. Chief Minister announced a judicial inquiry into Maliana killings. It was finally ordered on August 27, by Justice GL Srivastava, a retired, Judge of Allahabad High Court. On May 29, 1987, U.P. Government announced the suspension of the PAC Commandant RD Tripathi, who ordered the firing in Maliana. Interestingly allegations were also made against him during the 1982 Meerut riots. But the fact is RD Tripathi was never suspended and instead was awarded promotions in service till his retirement.

Custodial killings in jail

According to the various reports, more than 2500 people were arrested during the 1987 Meerut riots. Out of which 800 were arrested during the last fortnight of May (21-25) 1987. There were cases of custodial killings in jails as well. Reports and records of June 3, 1987 suggest that five arrested persons were killed in Meerut Jail while seven were killed in Fatehgarh jail, all of whom were Muslims. FIRs registered and case numbers of some of the custodial deaths in Meerut and Fategarh jails are still available.

The state government also ordered two other inquiries, into the incidents in Meerut prison and the Fatehgarh prison. A magisterial inquiry ordered into the incidents in Fatehgarh prison established that six people died as a result of injuries received, among other places, in the ‘scuffles that took place inside the jail’. 

According to the reports, IG (Prison) UP, suspended four jail wardens two jail guards (Behari Lai and Kunj Behari), two convict warders (Girish Chandra and Daya Ram) were suspended. Departmental proceedings, which include transfer, were launched against the chief head warden (Balak Ram), a deputy jailor (Nagendranath Srivastav), and the deputy superintendent of the prison (Ram Singh). On the basis of this report, three murder cases relating to these six killings were launched in Kotwali police station Meerut. But the First Information Reports (FIRs) do not list any names despite certain officials being indicted by the inquiry. So no prosecution was launched in the last 34 years.

The aftermath

After the announcement by the Uttar Pradesh government for a judicial inquiry on the Maliana incidents, under the Commission of Enquiries Act, 1952 in the last week of May 1987, the Commission headed by Justice GL Srivastav, a retired judge of Allahabad High Court started its proceedings three months later, on August 27, 1987. The examination of witnesses from Maliana was hindered by the continued presence of the PAC in Maliana. Finally, in January 1988, the Commission ordered the government to remove the PAC. Altogether 84 public witnesses, 70 Muslims, and 14 Hindus were examined by the Commission, in addition to five official witnesses. But over time the apathy and indifference of the public and the media seem to have afflicted its proceedings. Finally, the Judicial Commission, headed by Justice GL Srivastava, submitted its report on 31 July 1989 but it was never made public. 

Independently, the government also ordered an administrative inquiry over the riots that took place from May 18-22, 1987, but they exclude the events in Maliana and custodial killings in the Meerut & Fatehgarh jails. The panel, headed by Gian Prakash, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, consisted of Ghulam Ahmad, a retired IAS official and a former Vice-Chancellor of Avadh University, and Ram Krishan, IAS, Secretary PWD. The panel was asked to submit its report within thirty days, which it did. On the grounds that the inquiry was of an administrative nature, ordered for its own purposes, the government did not place its report before the legislature or public. However, The Telegraph, a daily from Calcutta, published the entire report in November 1987.

Now a public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Division Bench of Allahabad high court by this writer and former Director-General of Uttar Pradesh police, Vibhuti Narain Rai IPS, a victim Ismail, who lost his 11 family members at Maliana on May 23, 1987. The fourth petitioner is a lawyer M A Rashid, who conducted the case in a Meerut trial court; the petition seeks a fair and speedy trial by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) as also commensurate reparation/ compensation to the families of victims. 

More than three decades on, the Maliana massacre case and other custodial killings in Meerut during the 1987 riots has not progressed much as key court papers have mysteriously gone missing. The petitioners have also accused the UP Police and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel of intimidating victims and witnesses not to depose. After hearing this PIL, Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Yadav and Justice Prakash Padia of the Allahabad high court on  April 19, 2021, directed the Uttar Pradesh government to file a counter-affidavit. 

“Taking into consideration the grievance raised in the petition and the relief sought we call upon the State to file the counter affidavit and para-wise reply to the writ petition. List in week commencing May 24, 2021 in the additional cause list,” the Bench ruled.  The matter will now be heard in the furst week of June.
 

Related:

Hashimpura a Blot and Shame, The Importance of Memory: Vibhuti Narain Rai
The Lemmings of Hashimpura – Vibhuti Narain Rai, retired officer of the Indian Police Force (IPS)
16 PAC Personnel Guilty of Targeted Murder: Delhi HC in Hashimpura Custodial Killings, 1987

The author is a senior tri-lingual (Hindi, Urdu, and English) journalist with more than 35 years of experience across all traditional media viz. TV, radio, print, and the Internet. This includes over 14 years with the BBC World Service, and tenures with reputed media organisations like Rajya Sabha TV, Doordarshan News, ETV News, UNI, Observer Group of Publications, Anand Bazar Patrika Group, etc.

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