Siddharth Varadarajan
Four years after 19 constables of the Provincial Armed Constabulary should have gone on trial for the 1987 murder of 42 Muslims from Hashimpura near Meerut, the UP government has been unable to arrest and produce even one of them in court. Even by the lethargic, Kafkaesque standards of the Indian judicial system, the Hashimpura case is unique.
The 19 still serve in the PAC and their whereabouts are known. The court of the chief judicial magistrate, Ghaziabad - where the trial is supposed to take places - has the home address and current posting of each of the wanted men. Yet on no less than 23 occasions, the summons date has come and gone without them being brought to court. The most recent was April 29. Since 1998, non-bailable warrants. have been served 18 times but the state government has refused to execute the warrants of arrest. In February 1999, the court declared the PAC men absconders and ordered their properties confiscated. Even this has not been done.
Had the 19 been charged with trivial offences, one might have understood the government's reluctance to follow court orders. But consider this extract from the secret 1994 report of the state CB-CID on the Hashimpura case:
"On 22.5.87 at about 8.00 PM, about 40-42 persons were taken in PAC truck URU 1493 from Hashimpura for taking them to P.S. Civil Lines or Police Line, Meerut. But S.P. Singh, Platoon Commander, instead of taking them to the above destination carried them upper Gang Nahar, Murad Nagar, Ghaziabad and shot them one by one and threw them into the canal. When some of the detenus tried to escape they were shot at .. The remaining detenus were taken ... to the Hindon canal and the above PlatoonCommander and PAC men shot them dead".
The CB-CID indicted 66 PAC personnel. It fook the UP Government two years to sanction the prosecution of 19 men; the rest were let off with reprimands. To date, the CB-CID report has not been made public ...
Though it is the BJP government in Lucknow which is dragging its feet, virtually every party stands implicated in this denial of justice by delay. Hashimpura occurred when the Congress ruled UP. Subsequently, the Samajwadi Party and BSP have also been in power. Yet, none has treated the case with the seriousness it demands.
:.. The Ghaziabad Court has made no attempt to summon the DGs of the UP Police and PAC to explain their inability to locate the 19 accused ... The CJM said he had written to the concerned authorities on several occasions for help in arresting the charge-sheeted men.
According to lawyers ... the Government is playing for time. "The case against the PAC is iron-clad", said one advocate. "But as the years go by, evidence disappears, witnesses die". (Source: The Times of India)
G.M. Banatwalla's Letter to HM Advani On Hashimpura Massacre, 1 June, 2000
... Since 1998, non-bailable warrants were reportedly issued nearly eighteen times in the matter of the mass massacre of Muslims of Hashimpura in Meerut in 1987. The UP Government has failed to execute these warrants. As late as the summon date 29t April, 2000 the accused were not brought to Court.
. The CBCID submitted its finding in February 1994 and indicted 66 PAC personnel. It took the UP Government two years to permit the prosecution of 19 relatively junior personnel, while 47 were Iet off with mere departmental reprimands!
In February 1999, the court reportedly declared the PAC men absconders and ordered confiscation of their properties. Even these orders have reportedly not been carried out ... There is clear abdication of constitutional duty on the part of the UP Government and its authorities both in respect of (i) its failure to arrest the PAC men, who are still serving in PAC ... , produce them in the court and also to execute court orders to confiscate their properties and (ii) its brazen, illegitimate act in letting off 47 PAC men indicted of serious offence by CBCID report, with mere departmental reprimands ... I urge upon you to take every appropriate-action, including the issue of direction under the Constitution of India to the Government of UP to ensure justice and respect for the rule of law ...
