The story so far: Two-and-half years after communal clashes rocked the streets of north-east Delhi killing 53 people and injuring hundreds, an independent fact-finding Committee has blamed the breakout of violence to a deliberate build-up of polarised hate between communities, particularly anti-Muslim hate. The report titled ‘Uncertain Justice: A Citizens Committee Report on the North-East Delhi Violence 2020’ released last week was commissioned by the Constitutional Conduct Group, a group of former civil servants, who wanted an impartial probe into the events which led to the communal riots.
What did the report state?
Unlike previous fact-finding reports on the February 2020 riots, the ‘Uncertain Justice’ report is authored by a former judge of the Supreme Court, three high court retired judges and a retired IAS officer. It relies heavily on legal documents including FIRs, chargesheets, and orders passed by courts. The report puts into perspective the events triggered by the amendments passed to the citizenship law, the build-up to the violence, its trajectory, and the state’s response as it unfolded. The report stated that the Muslim community was grappling with deep fears of loss of citizenship, stemming from the combined effect of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), passed in December 2019 and the potential exclusion through the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process. Deepening their fears, a campaign of hate against anti-CAA protesters, and more broadly against Muslims, had been a steady feature in political speeches and election campaigning in the months immediately preceding the violence.
“Speeches, statements and slogans by BJP functionaries, prominently Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur, characterised the protesters as traitors, enemies, and violent troublemakers, within a divisive Hindu-Muslim binary,” the report stated.
Was the police complicit?
The material analysed in the report demonstrates that the Delhi Police failed to prevent the violence even though there were enough warning signs since January 2020 indicating a tense build-up. “There were also instances of police complicity of varying degrees,” the report said.
“Even though it can order central paramilitary forces whenever necessary, it seems the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) failed to ensure increased police deployment in North East Delhi during the initial phase of the violence,” the Committee said adding, “This was a prime factor in the galloping spread of the violence”. The Committee also found that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi did “precious little during this entire time to mediate between the communities, even with the warning signs”. The Delhi government, and its popular Chief Minister, displayed an entirely ineffectual, seemingly helpless stance rather than doing all it could on the back of its emphatic mandate.
Additionally, the report states that there was a targeted application of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) by the state. A few weeks into investigating, the police applied the (UAPA), an anti-terror legislation, into one of the FIRs connected with the riots, severely restricting the avenues of the accused to get bail during the course of the trial.
The report stated that the prosecution case at its highest would be that the conspirators, in their zeal to force a repeal of the CAA, participated in various criminal acts and created a situation so imminently dangerous “leading to death and bodily injury” in a localised area. “These acts do not constitute a terrorist offence. Applying Section 15, UAPA to the present case is not merely stretching the law, but a perversion of the law,” the report said.
What role did the media play?
The report squarely condemned news media for mirroring the politicians’ hate narrative directed at anti-CAA protesters and Muslims, beginning from December 2019 and continuing into 2020. It said that Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube were widely used to propagate divisive Hindu-Muslim narratives and calls for violence.
Was there dissent within the Commission?
Dr. Meeran Chadha Borwankar, IPS (Retd.), former Director-General, Bureau of Police Research and Development, withdrew from the Committee in the final stages of its work, constraining the report to be authored by the remaining five members.
In her dissenting note, she opined that a part of the anti CAA protests could have been orchestrated by anti-national and hostile foreign forces though major segment of the agitation consisted of spontaneous response of a community that felt alienated and discriminated against. She also rejected the inference made in the report that ‘police complicity with Hindu mobs, were contributing features of the violence’. While ruling out some cases where police complicity with Hindu mobs did contribute to violence, Ms Borwankar refused to paint all police officers of Delhi police to be ‘complicit with’ Hindu mobs.
What does the report aim to do?
The Constitutional Conduct Group had envisioned the report to contribute to the understanding of the riots and the after-effects. While the report has sparked discussion on these matters, it is unclear whether it can alter the course of the trials related to the riots which are currently underway.
- The report titled ‘Uncertain Justice: A Citizens Committee Report on the North-East Delhi Violence 2020’ is authored by a former judge of the Supreme Court, three high court retired judges and a retired IAS officer
- The report puts into perspective the events triggered by the amendments passed to the citizenship law, the build-up to the violence, its trajectory, and the state’s response as it unfolded
- The report stated that the Muslim community was grappling with deep fears of loss of citizenship, stemming from the combined effect of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), passed in December 2019 and the potential exclusion through the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process
- Deepening their fears, a campaign of hate against anti-CAA protesters, and more broadly against Muslims, had been a steady feature in political speeches and election campaigning in the months immediately preceding the violence
