The maxim “justice delayed is justice denied” must seem like a tired cliché to the relatives of the 42 Muslim men who fell prey to bullets, allegedly fired by members of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), and other survivors in Hashimpura in Meerut sometime in May 1987. The fact that it required 28 years to arrive at a court decision in the Hashimpura massacre is itself enough to suggest that justice has been thoroughly denied to the victims of the gruesome crime. On May 22, 1987, the PAC allegedly picked up dozens of Muslims, mainly youth, after curfew was imposed in Meerut city. Within days, 40 among them were found dead in the Ganga Canal in Ghaziabad district. It took nine years to file a charge sheet against 19 PAC personnel (the key individuals were allegedly spared), four more to arrest 16 of them in June 2000 when they finally surrendered after years spent in active service without being apprehended for their alleged crimes. In 2002, the case was transferred to a Delhi court and it took four years for charges to be filed against the accused. Thirteen years later, on March 21st, the 19 accused were let free due to lack of sufficient evidence and the inability of the witnesses to identify the accused.
This travesty of justice to the victims of the massacre is not surprising considering the shoddiness in the much delayed probe into it. Lawyers appearing for the victims and rights activists have, for a long time, complained about the loss of evidence that could have helped frame the accused circumstantially. Various police records, details related to the arms and ammunition used against the victims, logs, were all reported to have been missing after all these years since the incident. With such a botched up investigation by the police and a series of apathetic governments in UP regardless of political affiliations doing little to secure a case for the victims, the present outcome must surely be a blot on the Indian judicial process. The full judgement is not yet out as we go to press, but the victims have vowed to appeal to higher courts to seek justice. The Hashimpura massacre of Meerut's Muslims is an example of India's recent blighted past when police action and composition were known to be communalised at least in States like Uttar Pradesh. Since the late 1980s, there have been many police reforms but the record in handling communal violence has been mixed. Clearly, there need to be more substantive changes in policing and the nature of the judicial process if India’s citizens from the minority community are to be reassured of the secular nature of the Indian state and the justness of its judicial system.
Corrections and Clarifications - The Editorial >was corrected for a factual error.
