Months after the Uttar Pradesh police had declared that they destroyed crucial documents relating to the Hashimpura massacre case while the trial was still going on, the police are yet to disclose on whose orders and by whom were the case papers “weeded out.”
Police admit lapse
In an affidavit filed in February last year before the Delhi High Court where the Hashimpura massacre case in going on, the State police accepted that they had destroyed documents “after expiry of their prescribed period.”
The papers could have helped prove the involvement of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel in the Hashimpura massacre of 1987.
Following the affidavit, the bench headed by Justice Geeta Mittal had asked the police to disclose the details of the “weeding out” process of the crucial case papers.
But in its affidavit filed this week the police are yet to disclose on whose orders and by whom were the crucial evidence destroyed.
Ninteen PAC members allegedly abducted 42 Muslims from the Hashimpura mohalla of Meerut on May 22, 1987 in a truck and took them to a nearby canal in Muradnagar of Ghaziabad, where they were gunned down and their bodies dumped in the canal.
In March 21, 2015, the Tis Hazari court acquitted all the accused in the Hashimpura massacre case due to “insufficient evidence.” The UP government challenged the acquittal in the Delhi High Court, which is being heard by the Justice Mittal bench.
Contradictory affidavit
The UP police also contradicted its last affidavit and gave a different date and year in which the papers were “weeded out.”
In February last year the UP police had said “...all the details of the case were weeded out on April 1, 2006. Hence, it is impossible to make them available.”
But in its latest affidavit they declared that the documents were weeded out on April 20, 1993.
“That the general diary for the period from January 1, 1987 to December 31, 1987 of the local police contending the information about deployment of police troops within respective police station was weeded out on April 20, 1993 as per procedure, as the same was not required for any investigation or inquiry,” the affidavit said.
According to Vrinda Grover, who is representing the National Human Rights Commission, due to the continuous attempts of the State to “protect” those who destroyed evidence of the massacre case, “the honourable court has accepted our submission that police be directed to file a consolidated affidavit making it clear on whose orders and by whom were the crucial case papers destroyed.”
Ms Grover said the manner in which the UP government filed the affidavits seemed “an exercise in obfuscation.”
