A day late for the victims

HS Phoolka
Rights activist and Punjab MLA

UNDER the law, a victim’s role is merely to support the State — investigators and public prosecutors in criminal trials. Somehow, when it comes to the 1984 carnage cases, the approach of the administration has been to shift the burden of bringing forth evidence and securing punishment on victims and their families. To this extent, even the media has been responsible for highlighting the cause to esnure justice for the victims.  Is the failure to secure punishment for those responsible not a failure of society? Is the law catching up with the perpetrators not a victory of the entire nation?

Mr Justice RK Gauba of the Delhi High Court in his recent judgment upheld the conviction of 88 persons for mob violence in 1984 and observed ‘there is also a constraining view that such dark chapters in the history of the land must never get effaced from memory since they confront us, the civil society at large, by showing a mirror to expose to us the rot that lies within’. This warning assumes significance in our country, where 1984 was the dawn of a new trend of killing the innocent, using it to win elections and rewarding perpetrators by giving them plum posts. The law never caught up with those guilty. 

During a debate on the release of my book ‘When a Tree Shook Delhi’ in 2007, former law minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid had said the book serves as a caution to those who indulge in such crimes that law will eventually catch up with them. The recent convictions are a warning to those who have taken comfort in manipulating the system all these years, assuming that they will go scot-free due to their power. In a case of killing of Sikhs in Mahipalpur, two hoteliers were recently awarded sentences by Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Pandey. One of them has been awarded death sentence and another has gotten life imprisonment. 

The Supreme Court appointed a fresh SIT to reinvestigate cases that were closed, changing the whole approach and sending a clear message that justice needs to be done, no matter how much time may have elapsed. Besides the recent convictions, in other cases also, judgments are expected shortly. The reopening of the cases is also expected to result in fresh trials in many cases.  

In the Delhi High Court case referred above, the HC upheld a five-year sentence of 88 persons for rioting. As many as 107 rioters were arrested on November 2, but the police deliberately filed the chargesheet against them only for rioting and not murder, even though nearly a hundred bodies had been recovered. The court has directed the Police Commissioner to take action with respect to 22 unidentified bodies out of these 95. 

One wonders how 95 bodies are recovered in Trilokpuri alone and 107 persons are arrested on the spot, whereas in the rest of Delhi, nothing of the sort has been reported. As much as one would like to believe, this is not because the police did a good job here, to the contrary, the police was itself a party to the killings, but it was forced into action due to two journalists. Block Nos. 30 and 32 were inhabited by Lubana Sikhs who had migrated from Alwar, Rajasthan. On November 1, they were attacked by a mob led by then Congress leaders. Sikhs came out with swords in their hands and the mob retreated. However, a police team led by the SHO reached the spot and coaxed them to retreat into their houses, assuring their safety. Trusting the police, the Sikhs disarmed and retreated into their homes. The mob then individually pulled each Sikh out. In these two blocks, 400 Sikhs were killed in two days. One young Sikh ran towards the fields, managed to borrow a pair of scissors, cut his hair and spent the night in the fields. Next morning he went to the police headquarters to request for help, but was turned away. Next to the police headquarters was the Indian Express office, where the youth’s friend worked in the canteen. He narrated his story, and two journalists, Rahul Bedi and Joseph Maliakan, decided to visit Trilokpuri. But they were not allowed to enter the colony. They proceeded to the police station, where the duty officer assured them that Trilokpuri was totally peaceful. While they were leaving, they saw a truck standing in the corner and flies all over it. They decided to check it out and found that it was full of bodies. From among the bodies, they heard the shout of a Sikh who was crying for help and barely alive. He told them that he was from Trilokpuri and the Sikhs were being massacred. The journalists went back to the police station and asked them to send the injured Sikh to hospital, but were told that the DCP would take the decision. When he could not be contacted, they went to the headquarters and made a hue and cry, on which the ACP asked the DCP to reach Trilokpuri. The journalists again went to Trilokpuri and were allowed entry, only to find streets strewn with bodies. 

It is in these circumstances that the police was forced to send the bodies for postmortem and arrest rioters who were still indulging in looting and killing. The journalists filed their affidavits before the Justice Mishra Commission. Yet, none of the police officers have been punished. It has taken 35 years for the law to finally catch up with the 88 rioters.

One tends to lose the count of commissions that have gone into the events of 1984, but sadly the number convicted is even less than the number of members of these commissions. The grievance of victims is justified that the convictions are too little and too late. But whatever be the cost, in my case, a personal cost, for I resigned from the post of Leader of Opposition of the Punjab Legislative Assembly to appear in ’84 cases; at least as a nation we can now say that the culprits are finally meeting their fate.