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Justice for Mumbai riot victims sought

Special Correspondent

MUMBAI: Prominent citizens, riot victims and various groups came together to demand the implementation of the Srikrishna Commission report on the Mumbai riots of 1992-93 at a public meeting held in the city on Thursday. A citizen’s campaign for justice to victims of riots called ‘Justice for All’ was also launched on the occasion.

Speaker after speaker said that revenge was not the motive behind the demand for justice for riot victims.

Teesta Setalvad of the Citizens for Justice and Peace, who was part of a delegation to meet Mumbai Police Commissioner D.N. Jadhav said they were making a constitutional demand for justice and it should not be communalised. The delegation demanded that the police take action against the Shiv Sena’s newspaper Saamna for its inflammatory reports of the last few days.

Julio Ribeiro, who founded the Mohalla Committee Movement Trust in 1994, said that if there was a law it had to be upheld and people who violated it must be punished. He said punishing only one set of people for their terrorist actions and not addressing another section was immoral, illegal and unjust.

As a policeman, it was not difficult to find out who the perpetrators of the riots were and punish them. But he pointed out that the law could not be thrown away because of fear of communal violence. There must be efforts to prevent any tension and try the cases openly in court, he added.

‘Reject Sena contention’

Pushpa Bhave, writer and critic, called on all Hindus, including Maharashtrians, to come out and say that Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray was not representing them. “People have to reject his contention that valour means cruelty,” she said. She said riot cases had to be reopened as a matter of justice.

Referring to recent reports in Saamna, Maulana Athar Ali, a cleric, clarified that his statement to the newspaper was misinterpreted. “All I am asking for is that the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission should be impl emented. The culprits must be punished. There is no question of Hindu or Muslim in this,” he said.

Justice H. Suresh (retd.) who along with Justice S.M. Daud (retd.) had brought out a report on the 1992-93 riots in a short span of six months, said Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was talking of taking legal opinion on reopening of the riot cases. There was no need for this. “All you have to do is register the offences mentioned in the Commission of Inquiry and proceed. For this, there has to be a sense of justice,” he said. People could also go and file individual cases.

“We should have raised our voices earlier. The riots happened before the blasts and over 1,000 people were killed,” he said.

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