Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has been put under pressure to do something visible about the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission’s report. The report had indicted Shiv Sena politicians and several policemen of direct involvement in the 1992-93 Mumbai riots.
The demand for action on the report began after the Special TADA Court here pronounced stiff sentences on 100 convicts in the 1993 serial bombings case.
Mr Deshmukh has sought the opinion of the state’s advocate general on the cases that were closed after investigation or could not stand scrutiny of the courts.
A delegation of 20 Muslim organisations met him and furnished the list of cases which it wanted to be reopened and probed. Mr Deshmukh told mediapersons that he had sent all those cases to the police commissioner, as most of them were related to police officers indicted by the commission. The chief minister’s office also prepared a detailed note for Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
According to home ministry sources here, the commission had directed reopening of 1,371 riot cases, which were closed by the then Shiv Sena-BJP government as “true but undetected”. The commission’s report was tabled in the assembly by the then chief minister Manohar Joshi in 1998. It was dubbed “pro-Muslim” and rejected.
Of the 1,371 closed cases, the STF investigated only 112 cases and charge sheets were filed in only eight cases. Mr Tyagi and seven others were discharged in the Suleiman Bakery police firing case. No case was filed against the Sena politicians.
The Muslim organisations are now planning a rally on August 20 to press the Deshmukh government to initiate action against erring cops and Shiv Sena leaders.
Shiv Sena has already warned of “dire consequences” if any of its leaders were prosecuted on the demand of Muslim organisations.
In a provocative article in its mouthpiece Saamna, the party said reopening of the cases is tantamount to saying “hang the Hindus”, which is “nothing but votebank politics in which the Congress has always indulged in”
