Mumbai: On Friday, November 4, when the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on one of the petitions filed in the Mumbai riots of 1992-93, the petitioner, Shakil Ahmed, was unaware of the outcome. A senior journalist in Mumbai made a phone call to Ahmed to inform him that his over-two-decade-long struggle for justice had abruptly ended.“It didn’t come to me as a shock,” the 51-year-old lawyer-cum-activist told The Wire. The judiciary, he says, has dragged its feet for so long that he had lost hope of any positive outcome. But what disturbed him was the court’s grounds to dispose of his petition – “a long passage of time”.In 2001, after waiting for three years for the Maharashtra state government to implement the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Commission report, Ahmed approached the Supreme Court. His primary prayers included action against over 30 policemen, whom the commission had recommended disciplinary action against for ordering or directly opening fire, leading to many deaths and causing injuries to innumerable men belonging to the Muslim community. Ahmed’s petition had also sought compensation for families of 168 persons who went “missing” after the riot.The apex court after 21 years directed the state government to pay Rs 2 lakh with an additional 9% interest per annum since January 1999, when the state had passed the government resolution. The court has directed the state to form a committee to trace the families of missing persons who have been “deprived of compensation” and “complete the procedural formalities”.On the point of action against the erring policemen, however, the court has observed: “In view of a long passage of time, as far as the disciplinary action is concerned, now in the year 2022, it will be inappropriate to go into the question of the validity of the orders passed by the disciplinary authorities and the adequacy of the penalties imposed.”The December 6, 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya caused widespread violence across different parts of Mumbai city. Several senior leaders of the Shiv Sena, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were accused of mobilising mobs against Muslims in the city. At the end of the widespread riot which lasted for more than a month, over 900 persons – predominantly from the Muslim community – were killed. Among many leaders, the commission had held the then Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray responsible for provoking his party workers to “retaliate” by launching “organised attacks against Muslims”.Also read: With Weary Witnesses, Suleman Usman Bakery Case Goes to Trial After 26 YearsThe voluminous report and its grave findings, however, were ignored by both the Congress and Shiv Sena-BJP governments over the past three decades. When the riots broke out, the Congress was in power in the state. Later, in 1995, when the Sena-BJP coalition government came into power, it tried to divert the commission’s primary focus from riots to the subsequent serial bomb blast in the state. And when Justice Srikrishna refused to cave in, this became a ground for rejecting the report in totality.Shakil Ahmed. Photo: Special arrangementFrom 1998 to 2001, Ahmed recalls, he and other citizen groups actively campaigned for action against the erring policemen. Their demand was consistent: take cognisance of the commission’s findings and initiate action against the policemen responsible for killing so many innocent citizens of Mumbai. When the state failed, Ahmed moved the court. He insists that the victims and their lawyers have always been swift in asking for justice. “How can the (Supreme) Court then give delay as the reason for not dispensing justice?” he asks. “Can victims be punished for the judicial delay? If anything, the courts and the government are responsible for the delay.”In the past three decades, riot victims have made several attempts to seek justice. Several petitions were moved from time to time before the state administration and judiciary seeking compensation, demand for legal action, and reopening of cases. But each of these appeals has been ignored on flimsy grounds. Meanwhile, the state promoted most of those policemen accused of serious crimes like shooting at innocent members of the Muslim community, destruction of property, and slapping false cases. “It was as if the state was rewarding the policemen for killing innocent people,” Ahmed says.As an example, Ahmed, in his petition, cited outcomes in 253 cases. Among them, only six had ended in conviction. In as many as 114 cases, the accused persons were acquitted. Around 97 were put into cold storage as “dormant cases”. The Supreme Court has now directed the state government to provide details of these 97 cases to the Registrar General of the Bombay high court within a period of one month and take necessary steps to trace the absconding/missing accused and restart the trial.The petition also stated that over 1,300 cases were closed by the police after being classified as “A Summary” cases, which in legal parlance means “true but undetected”. In most of these cases, the victims had deposed before the commission and had provided ample evidence for the court to proceed with the trial. On the contrary, when the police sought to close the case, the trial court had mindlessly accepted their application, Ahmed points out.Also read: Twenty-Four Years After the Bombay Riots, a Continuing Sense of InjusticeOver the past three decades, Ahmed, first as a young rights activist and later as a lawyer, has helped several riot victims approach the court and receive compensation from the state. He recalls how several female victims were denied compensation because they chose to remarry after losing their respective husbands. Some victims, who were not able to produce adequate documents like ration cards or residential proof, were also turned down. Over the years, people just gave up.Both lives and properties were lost in the violence. After the riots, many Muslim families were forced to abandon their property and belongings in Mumbai and look for safer refuge in the city’s outskirts. This was the beginning of a systematic ghettoisation in Mumbai, permanently pushing them to the fringes.Ahmed’s was one of the very few petitions that were pending before the Supreme Court. His lawyer for over 20 years, Colin Gonsalves, had handled the case pro bono. Going to the apex court and fighting consistently for so long is not easy for victims, Ahmed says. “And the handful of us who pushed our way through and went knocking at the doors of the higher judiciary have also returned empty-handed now.”
