Qamar-u-ddin was found dead in a river after being taken by Indian police in May 1987
Meerut, India - The massacre took place on May 22, 1987, the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The families of Hashimpura - a predominantly
Muslim locality in the city of Meerut, 75km northeast of New Delhi in
the state of Uttar Pradesh - had retreated to their homes to break fast.
Dusk transformed into night in relative peace -
until armed officers started charging into homes, rounding up as many
able-bodied men as they could.
"They burst inside the house, went inside,
upstairs, everywhere shouting, 'Where are your men, where are your
men?'" Zapun Begum told Al Jazeera from the courtyard of her home, her
eyes cast downward.
A framed wedding portrait of her then-22-year-old
son, Qamar-u-ddin, rested against the side of the plastic lawn chair in
which she sat. In her wrinkled hands, she held a small photograph
showing his body after it emerged from the river in which it was dumped:
chest bare, eyes shut, body wrapped like a mummy.
Her other four sons were able to get away, but it
was her eldest that received the same fate as 41 other Muslim men in
what's become known as the "Hashimpura massacre" - a 28-year-old mass
murder that only reached a verdict days ago despite its age.
Drawn out trial
A New Delhi high court last Saturday acquitted 16
Uttar Pradesh police personnel charged with abducting some 50 men of
Hashimpura that night, driving them away in a yellow truck, shooting 41
dead, and dumping the bodies into the river. The fortunate others
managed to escape.
Prosecutors allege the police officers were part of a state police unit called the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC).
"It was a joint operation of the army, the local police,
the PAC and the central reserve police force," Satish Tamta, the
special prosecutor appointed to the case in 2008, told Al Jazeera.
What happened that night in Meerut was an isolated
incident no one anticipated. But the city had a history of communal
flare-ups every few years, and that time in particular was tense.
A year earlier, then-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi
opened up the gates of the Babri Masjid for Hindu worship. The site of
the famous mosque, located in the Uttar Pradesh city of Ayodhya, has
long been a contention for Hindus and Muslims.
Hindus say it is the birthplace of Lord Ram. The
Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a right-wing Hindu nationalist group, had laid
claims to the mosque site since the late 1970s. By the time Gandhi opened it in 1986, both communities were highly polarised on the issue.
Religious riots
Clashes between Hindus and Muslims erupted in
Meerut and its surrounding areas in the days preceding the Hashimpura
massacre. A curfew was put in place, along with "regular checking."
"During communal riots, the normal practice is
that people are searched and their houses are searched for any legal or
illegal weapons," said Vibhuti Narain Rai, the then-superintendent of
police in neighbouring Ghaziabad district, who has written a book on the
massacre.
|
It's the police forces, bureaucracy, and also those political
personalities who just try to hush up everything. It's a shame on the
state. |
Jailing people the police suspected might incite violence was also routine.
Different law enforcement agencies collaborated to
conduct the searches and arrests that night in riot-affected areas,
according to the court's charge sheet.
"There were riots happening in Meerut, but not in
Hashimpura," Zulfiqar Nasir, one of five survivors of the massacre, told
Al Jazeera.
Some allege police prejudice led to the killings.
"The PAC at that time was known as an anti-Muslim
police force," said Zafaryab Jilani, a legal advisor to the All India
Muslim Personal Law Board and leader of the Babri Masjid Action
Committee. "They do not come to action by themselves … The local police
generally calls the PAC because its numbers are not sufficient."
Revenge attack?
According to the English translation of the
court's charge sheet, "some unsocial elements" had attempted to murder a
member of the PAC, and seized two guns from PAC officers.
A Hindu boy was also killed in the violence, leading some to believe the massacre may have been a form of revenge.
"He [the Hindu boy] was standing on the roof of
his house and a bullet came from the side of Hashimpura and struck him,"
the former police superintendent Rai said. "It was an understanding
that he had been killed by a Muslim."
Yet these incidents are likely to have been
staged, said Paul Brass, a researcher on South Asian politics and author
of the book The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India.
"So-called 'tensions' are deliberate acts of
provocation, staged by the BJP cadres, mostly at election times," Brass
told Al Jazeera, referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political
arm of India's Hindu nationalist movement.
Photojournalist Praveen Jain had come to Meerut
from New Delhi that day to photograph the ongoing communal riots. He
instead captured the unfolding action before Hashimpura massacre.
"They were crying and begging, 'Leave us we are
innocent," Jain told Al Jazeera. "And the army handed over these
innocent people to the PAC."
The judge last Saturday cleared the 16 accused PAC
personnel - originally 19 before three died - saying there wasn't
enough evidence to prove their responsibility for the massacre.
Defence lawyer LD Mual said the Provincial Armed Constabulary unit was made a "scapegoat" and the judgment was based upon.
"As far as the investigation of the case is concerned, the subject matter is with the state," Mual told Al Jazeera.
'Ties of the khaki'
Critics argue the handling of the investigation,
which took nine years to complete, shows authorities purposefully
delayed the case to protect the assailants.
The "fraternal ties of the khaki," - police
officers wear khaki uniforms - also overshadow any investigations they
must do on each other, said Vrinda Grover, a victims' lawyer.
"Under Indian law, it is the state that is the
investigating and prosecuting agency," Grover said. "If the state is
with the accused, then the exact framework in which justice should be
delivered will be badly shaken."
The holes in the two-decade-long investigation
might have been explained better had the right sources been available as
well, said Tamta, the special prosecutor for the case.
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| Mohammed Qadir holds up a photo of his father whose body was never found [Praveen Jain/Al Jazeera] |
"Two of the major investigating officers of the
case had died during the course of the trial, and so there was no one to
tell the missing links to complete the story."
Ramesh Dixit, a retired professor of political
science at Lucknow University, pointed out that lawyers assigned to the
case changed many times, until victims' families petitioned for the
case's transfer to New Delhi in 2002.
"It's the police forces, bureaucracy, and also
those political personalities who just try to hush up everything," Dixit
said. "It's a shame on the state."
Victims' families and survivors are now planning to appeal.
Grover said the issue must be raised outside the
court as well. "There are serious issues of how the legal system is
functioning and not delivering justice repeatedly in the cases of mass
crimes and targeted killings," she said.
Mohammed Qadir, whose father was killed in the
massacre - his body never recovered - said the families have waited too
long for answers.
"But if they [PAC] didn't kill them, who did? It's the state's responsibility to tell us," said Qadir.
Source: Al Jazeera