NEW DELHI: The Shiv Sena BJP Government in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra had decided to close the investigations of about 200 murder, cases registered in connection with the Bombay riots after the demolition of Babri Masjid in December 1992, The cases have been declared as ‘true but undetected.’ This information was provided to the Supreme Court in an affidavit filed by the special Secretary of the State Home Department. More than 2,000 Muslims were killed in the riots and properly worth crores was destroyed. Witnesses before the Indian Peoples Human Rights Commission had named 641 rioters, most of them influential Shiv Sena activists.
Earlier, the state government had wound up the Srikrishna Commission inquiring into the Bombay riots. Mr A.B, Masud, a journalist asserts that if the enquiries would have been allowed to go, then half of the Shiv Sena BJP ministers ruling the state would have been behind bars, Particularly”, he pointed out “the newly elected Shiv Sena member of parliament Madhukar Sarpotdar who was caught red-handed by the art my carrying arms in 4 truck during the riots. But the state police later released him and even scrapped the FIR lodged against him.” Prominent citizens of India’s commercial capital like Rattan Tata, Chairman of Tara Industrial Empire, cine star Sunil Dutt, and Dileep Kumar had even blamed the Shiv Sena leaders for taking active parting the riots. The Shiv Sena BJP government which came to power in March 1995, in one year dissolved the state Urdu academy and even disbanded the minority’s commission, On the other hand, the police acted swiftly in the case of the serial bomb blasts of March 1993, it used and terrorist law indiscriminately to book. ‘Muslims in the bomb blast cases.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 5, 1996
