The response of the Union home ministry to the February 2020 Delhi riots was wholly inadequate, a report by four former judges and a former civil servant has said.
The report, titled “Uncertain Justice”, was authored by a citizens’ committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur. The other members of the committee were former judges AP Shah, RS Sodhi and Anjana Prakash, and former Union home secretary GK Pillai.
The report focused on the communal violence that had broken out in North East Delhi between February 23 and February 26, 2020 as supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing the law clashed. The violence claimed 53 lives and hundreds were injured. The majority of those killed were Muslims.
The Delhi Police claim the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and was hatched by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Act.
They also claimed the protestors had secessionist motives and were using “the facade of civil disobedience” to destabilise the government. The police have arrested several activists and students based on these conspiracy charges.
The committee, in the report, also said that the Delhi government “did precious little” to mediate between Hindus and Muslims in the period leading up to the violence. It, however, recognised that the Delhi government had limited ability to control the violence, as the police in the city are under the Centre’s control.
The evidence put forward by the Delhi Police in its chargesheet in larger conspiracy case does not meet the legal threshold to justify terror charges, the committee said.
The inception, occurrence and aftermath of the February 2020 Delhi violence were characterised by a “frightening undermining of democratic values”, it said.
‘Centre failed to take effective steps’
The committee said that the Union home ministry failed to take effective steps to control communal violence although it controls the Delhi Police as well as central paramilitary forces.
“Repeated assurances on February 24 and 25 by police top brass and government officials that the situation was under control did not match the visibility of violence on the ground,” the report said. “Though internal alerts circulated by the Delhi Police advised increased police deployment in North East Delhi on February 23 itself, official data shows that deployment rose only on 26 February.”
This story was originally published in scroll.in . Read the full story here
