Acquittals in cases of communal violence in India

A travesty of justice:
Acquittals in cases of communal violence in India
By Sarath Kumara
25 August 2003

The protracted legal proceedings over the anti-Muslim pogroms in the Indian state of Gujarat in March last year have exposed just how deeply the entire official establishment in mired in Hindu chauvinism.

The violence erupted throughout the state after a clash in February 2002 involving a train carrying supporters of the Hindu extremist group—the World Hindu Council (VHP)—left 58 people dead.

The VHP, Bajrang Dal and other chauvinist groups immediately blamed Muslims and, with the tacit support of the Bharathiya Janatha Party (BJP) state government, launched an orchestrated rampage against Muslim families, their homes and businesses. About 2,500 men, women and children, mainly Muslim, were killed and many more were injured, raped or left homeless.

The violence was a part of wider agenda. Looking for a means of reversing a string of electoral losses, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and sections of the BJP leadership seized on the riots as the means for intensifying communal tensions. The BJP won the state elections last December by appealing directly to Hindu chauvinism in what was a highly charged communal atmosphere.

Eighteen months after the riots, no one has been convicted over the anti- Muslim violence despite compelling evidence against individual thugs. One high profile case involved the murder of 14 people—11 Muslims and three Hindus—who were burnt alive when a mob set fire to the Best Bakery in Vadodara. The proceedings were given “fast track” status to enable a speedy decision.

The case was based on the statements of a number of witnesses who had seen what had happened and identified the culprits. The main witness— Zahira Habibullah Seikh, the daughter of the bakery owner—described in detail how the thugs burnt the building down, killing her father.

But in the course of the hearings, Zahira and 41 of the 73 other witnesses abruptly retracted their statements. Without bothering to question why, the trial judge, H.U. Mahida, immediately dismissed the charges on June 27 declaring there was not “iota of reliable evidence” against the suspects. He went on to accuse the witnesses of fabricating the evidence against the accused.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/guja-a25_prn.shtml

some older background--
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/06/india070103.htm
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01112002/0111200291.htm