New Delhi: The issue of justice for the victims of the 2018 Thoothukudi firing and the alleged police excesses have once again come to the fore after the probe report by Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission was partially leaked recently.While the leaked report has once renewed calls for justice from victims and activists, it has – much to the chagrin of political parties – opened a can of worms. The Commission’s report – which has been kept under wraps since May this year when it was submitted to the Tamil Nadu government – indicted policemen of using “excessive lethal force” and opening fire “unprovoked” at “fleeing protesters”. In all, 13 people had died during protests.The findings of the leaked report were first published by Frontline and were also carried by The Wire subsequently.Although the report was submitted to the M.K. Stalin-led government in May, it has not been tabled so far in the state assembly. According to Section 3(4) of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, the report has to be tabled within six months from the day of submission to the state government. The Commission was constituted by the then All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government, with Justice Jagadeeshan, a former judge of Madras high court, as its head.Also read: Probe Panel on Thoothukudi Firing Says Police Shot At ‘Fleeing Protesters Unprovoked’: ReportViolence erupted in the last week of May 2018 in Thoothukudi coinciding with the 100th day of a peaceful civil protest by locals against Sterlite Corporation’s smelter plant in their town. Several hundred protesters were arrested and faced harassment at the hands of police. Internet was also suspended in the district from May 23-28, 2018, for the very first time in Tamil Nadu in wake of a law-and-order situation. The opposition to the plant was due to ecological damage the plant would result in, according to the protesters.Smoke billows from the site of protests against the Sterlite unit in Thoothukudi. Photo: PTI/FilesSoon after the violence in 2018, Stalin and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders visited the affected town and promised to render justice to victims by initiating action against errant police officials. He also reiterated the promise in the run-up to the 2021 Assembly elections.According to The News Minute, victims are disappointed with the government for dragging its feet over tabling the report before the state assembly and not acting against policemen who resorted to violence.“We welcome the commission’s report, but now action needs to be taken. Chief minister M.K. Stalin has to act on it with urgency. Otherwise, all that has come out through the report will just be forgotten. Shouldn’t there be some justice for all the blood and tears spilled?” Vanitha, the mother of a 17-year-old girl who was killed in the firing, told the website.“We have to spend the rest of our lives with grief over Snowlin’s death. No action can bring her back to life. At least justice must be done,” she added.According to a Hindu report, on August 24, Tamil Fishermen Federation (Tamil Meenavar Kootamaipu) demanded the Stalin government to “immediately” place the probe report and action-taken report before the assembly. The fisherfolk and organisations of Thoothukudi are politically and economically significant given that it is a coastal town.Speaking to press persons Federation’s convenor A. Rajini said senior police officials and the then Thoothukudi district collector, who were all named in the report for their involvement or making ill-conceived decisions, should be booked under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, according to The Hindu.Activists across the state also said they welcomed the findings of the Commission and urged the government to act immediately. Henri Tiphagne, executive director of People’s Watch, a rights-based organisation, took to Twitter to demand justice be delivered to victims.“Time @mkstalin @CMOTamilnadu urgently & w/o delay calls for an urgent session of the TN Leg Assembly & places the report & the ATR [action taken report],” Tiphagne tweeted. S. Vanchinathan, a practising advocate at the Madurai bench of the Madras high court and associated with the anti-Sterlite movement told News Minute, “When M.K. Stalin was Opposition leader, he sought the investigation and arrest of the then DGP. Now Stalin is the CM, he should suspend all 17 police officials whose names have been mentioned in the report. The government should table the report along with the action taken report.”Administrative and political challenges While the DMK may have promised to deliver justice to the victims of the Thoothukudi firing, the Stalin government now has to wade through a legal imbroglio before it tables the report in the assembly and acts on the findings of the Commission.Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin. Photo: PTIThe legal issue pertains to the fact the probe findings of the Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission are starkly different from a report earlier submitted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which carried out its own probe on the directives of the Madras high court.The CBI had chargesheeted 71 protesters and only one policeman while the Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission called for stern action against 17 top police officials and no protester has been named. Given that CBI had already filed a first information report (FIR), there cannot be another FIR for the same crime, now based on the Commission report.“The government can accept the findings and order a departmental inquiry against the officers indicted by the commission. The government can also choose to partly accept the findings of the report, or they can reject the findings of the commission altogether,” M. Radhakrishnan of the Madras high court told The News Minute.Also read: ‘In Thoothukudi, the Choice Before People Was to Die of Cancer or Bullets’However, both families of the deceased and activists rejected the CBI report. “This report from Aruna Jagadeesan highlighted the inefficiency of the CBI investigation,” Vanchinathan said, according to The News Minute.Even as the administrative and legal issues remain, it becomes important for Stalin to act and honour his prepoll promises of rendering justice to the victims by bringing errant police officials to book. The credibility of him and his government at very much at stake.Meanwhile, the principal opposition, AIADMK, which was at the helm of affairs when the violence took place in 2018, slammed the DMK government over the leaked contents of the report and demanded the resignation of Stalin for not maintaining “confidentiality” as required.On Sunday, August 21, AIADMK senior leader and former minister, D. Jayakumar called for Stalin’s resignation and said that the leakage of the report was for diverting the attention of people from the failures of the state government.He said it was the responsibility of the state government to maintain the secrecy of the report submitted to it in a sealed cover until it was tabled in the Assembly, and called for Stalin’s resignation owning “moral responsibility”.While the DMK has been cagey in responding to the calls for Stalin’s resignation, there have been few voices from the ruling party who sought to know why was AIADMK touchy about the findings of the Commission report.They asked if the AIADMK was perturbed by the fact that the Commission had exposed the failings of the then government during the Thoothukudi violence. Meanwhile, activists and families say they stand vindicated that the police had indeed used indiscriminate force to quell peaceful protests resulting in the death of 14 people.The damning report by the Commission held several top police officials responsible for the violence, including the then Inspector General of Police (South Zone) Shailesh Kumar Yadav (now ADGP, Police Welfare); Deputy Inspector General of Police (Tirunelveli Range) Kapil Kumar C. Saratkar (now an Additional Commissioner of Police, Chennai city); Superintendent of Police (Thoothukudi) P. Mahendran (now Deputy Commissioner (Admn), Chennai); and Deputy SP (Thoothukudi) Lingathirumaran, and three Inspectors, two Sub-Inspectors, one head constable and seven constables.The Commission’s report, which runs into 3,000 pages and spread over five volumes, charged police with opening fire at “fleeing protesters”.“Here is a case of police indulging in shooting from their hide-outs at the protesters who were far away from them,” the report said, adding that the protesters were unaware of where and which direction the bullets were coming from, resulting in “total chaos, destruction, and death”.The commission recommended that the state government initiate action against the police officials for “their acts of commission and omission departmentally without prejudice to launching criminal action”, for they “have certainly exceeded the limit”.