An 11-member committee of the State Congress set up to study the Delhi Minorities Commission fact-finding report into the north-east Delhi communal violence said the report lacked credibility.
Delhi Congress chief Ch. Anil Kumar said that the panel constituted by the DMC to probe the communal violence was a “weak and sham committee” which did not have any legal rights, either to call the Delhi police or force them to appear before it for recording their statements. Mr. Kumar demanded a judicial inquiry to unravel the truth and punish the guilty.
Mr. Kumar said that the Delhi government’s sole purpose in constituting the fact-finding committee via the DMC seemed to be to absolve the Aam Aadmi Party from any blame for the violence and destruction. Mr. Kumar alleged that the Delhi government had stayed silent during the riots and if it had intervened, many lives and property could have been saved.
Deliberate attempt
“It was a deliberate attempt to exclude a member of the DMC from the fact-finding committee, as the DMC enjoys quasi-judicial powers under Section 10(5) of the DMC Act, and the Delhi police was rule-bound to respond to the summons of the fact-finding committee, if a DMC member was in it,” Mr. Kumar said.
He added that if the Kejriwal government was serious about unravelling the truth and bringing the culprits of the riots to book, then it should have demanded a judicial probe, headed by either a sitting or retired Hight Court judge.
The Delhi Congress questioned why FIRs were not filed against the BJP leaders who “incited communal violence”, and why the roles of the elected representatives of the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party were not investigated by the fact-finding committee.
