One year after the sudden savage communal violence in Muzaffarnagar shredded social and economic relations in the prosperous sugarcane belt of Western Uttar Pradesh, many culpable collective failings — of governments, political parties and ordinary people — cast ominous shadows on the social landscape. People who lived and worked together for centuries are profoundly estranged. Around half of the 50,000 people who fled their villages in terror — as their neighbours attacked them — are unable or unwilling to return home and still in camps or resettling in other villages and towns.
Neither the state nor social groups worked to heal wounds and bridge distrust. Instead social hatred continues to be fostered, and livelihoods of people displaced from their homelands have collapsed. But among these many failings, one that is often forgotten is the miscarriage of legal justice against the perpetrators of hate violence. Without justice, as I have learned from survivors communal violence, wounds do not heal and fresh violence cannot be deterred.
Without initially apprehending the accused, the police cannot even begin serious investigation of the crimes. Around 6,400 persons were accused of crimes in more than 500 FIRs filed after the carnage. The Special Investigation Team investigating these crimes reported to the Supreme Court six months later that the number of the accused was down to 3,254 (because police concluded many were innocent and some names repeated). A year later, only 800, or less than a fifth, have been arrested, and most of those have been released on bail. The failure of the state administration to arrest four out of five persons accused of hate crimes — including murder, rape, arson and robbery — reflects either open communal bias, or incredible inefficiency.
It does not help that this ‘inefficiency’ is selective. Two killings in village Qawal set off the subsequent bouts of hate violence. The first was the stabbing of a young Muslim man Shahnawaz by a mob of Jat young men including the cousins Sachin and Gaurav. The second was the murder of Sachin and Gaurav by a mob of Muslim men in the village. The story, which was circulated to stir communal passions, was that Shahnawaz was killed by Sachin and Gaurav because he was stalking and sexually harassing Sachin’s sister, and the Muslim men extracted cruel revenge by lynching them. The original FIR, statements by Sachin’s sister and others, established that this was a lie, and the violence arose from a heated dispute after a motorcycle accident. But whereas the Muslim men accused of killing the Jat cousins were arrested, investigation effectively concluded and the charge-sheet ready, no one has yet been arrested for Shahnawaz’s murder, and we learn that the police is readying to close the case without trial.
The common defence of police officers for failing to arrest men named in FIRs is that women from the village block their paths when they try to apprehend them. But how do women know in advance that police teams are arriving in a particular village for arrests? And can any self-respecting police remain passive in the face of these restraints on performing their elementary duty? Nasir Ali, senior advocate appointed Special Public Prosecutor for three months, is on record stating that information about pending arrests are deliberately leaked, making it difficult to arrest suspects.
Even without arresting the majority of the initial accused, cases are rapidly being closed: the police have declared 3,094 accused persons innocent, and charges are being pursued against only 1,540 persons today. There is enormous pressure on the accused to rescind their statements, and a large number of witnesses have turned hostile. Although Indian criminal law does not permit ‘compromise’ in heinous offences, this remains a routine practice after mass communal violence. Since the accused freely roam the same villages, either evading arrest or on bail, they are free to intimidate the complainants. It does not help that the majority of the complainants are impoverished farm workers or brick kiln labourers, critically dependent on the large Jat landowners for work and loans.
Wounds fester further because only three of the 25 men accused in six cases of gang-rape have been held. “I will carry this shame for all my life, but not one (of the men who raped her) is in jail,” said a 25-year old woman of village Fugana to Betwa Sharma, reporter for Al Jazeera. Another added sadly, “We are poor, another year will pass without arrests, and then we will be forgotten.” Given the disgraceful record of the police so far in apprehending those charged with grave hate crimes, her pessimism is understandable.
