The Maharashtra government is planning to ask the Bombay High Court to set up special courts to try expeditiously, serious cases involving killings of innocent persons during the 1992-93 Mumbai riots.

This assurance was given by the Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to a delegation of Muslim organisations and NGOs, which are pressing the State government to re-open a number of closed cases mentioned by the Srikrishna Commission, which had probed the riots.

According to the Chief Minister’s office, a proposal for setting up of the special courts will be put up before the state cabinet for clearance and then government will approach the High Court with the proposal.

 The delegation called on Mr Deshmukh at the secretariat and had a discussion with him. During the meeting, the Chief Minister appealed the delegation members to postpone the August 20 rally.

The delegation members, which included social activist Teesta Setalvad, film maker Mahesh Bhatt and others, told the Chief Minister that the Srikrishna report mentioned 253 cases out of which two to three dozen cases were of serious nature involving offences under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Mr Deshmukh, who apprised the Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the issue over the weekend, told the members that the government was “very serious” on the matter and would approach the High Court with a request to set up three to four special courts to deal with the serious cases.

Mr Bhatt later told reporters that the delegation was satisfied by the Chief Minister’s assurance and “we are postponing the rally to October 25.”

During the meeting Mr Deshmukh also assured the delegation that stringent action would be taken against newspapers publishing inflammatory articles. Mr Deshmukh has already directed the law  and the  Commissioner to probe alleged lapses in the implementation of the report.