The Srikrishna Commission which probed the communal riots in Mumbai, during December 1992 and January 1993, has seen the Muslim rioting in the wake of the Ayodhya demolition on December 6, 1992, as a spontaneous reaction to the incident and the later Hindu response as engineered.

While the Shiv Sena chief, Mr. Bal Thackeray, comes in for very adverse mention for his not insignificant role, the Commission has also held t he then Sudhakarrao Naik Government responsible for not being able to handle the riots.

The one-man panel headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna, which laboured for nearly five years, has not gone with Mr. Naik's contention that the army was not available in time to render assistance to civil administration. The commission has also quantified the number of persons who lost their lives community-wise ..

... That the contents are quite embarrassing to the Government, especially the Shiv Sena, is evident from the manner in which the report is being handled.

It is now known that three elements - spontaneity of the Muslim response to the Ayodhya demolition, the Sena's involvement in provoking a communal dimension and the failure of the Naik Government in coping with the crisis –are the highlights of the report.

The 700-page report handed over to the Maharashtra Government in mid-February remains shrouded in secrecy ... All accounts ... indicate that it is meticulously documented and "explosive" with one source saying, "It is like a cache of RDX. No wonder it is being handled with care".

... The least the Government would like is to have the courts telling it that the report should be published and, if forced to, the Sena would like to see how the contents could be exploited to consolidate the Hindu voters. Another riot as a consequence to the report's publication, is feared by the administration ... and is being cited in support of the argument ..

The BJP, which helped vitiate the air by its "Maha-arati" programmes in retaliation to the Muslim practice of spilling out on the streets from the congested mosques for their Friday prayers, too, is mentioned. But the BJP's discomfiture has to do with being allied with a party that has been named in the report ...

The Shiv Sena ... has publicly demanded that Vajpayee intervene to ensure that a report presumed to be partisan is not published.                        (Source: The Hindu, 13 May, 1998)