This year marks the 34th anniversary of the ghastly killings of Hashimpura Mohalla and Maliana village of Meerut district in which more than a 120 Muslims were killed by the UPs PAC and other custodial killings of more than 12 Muslims in Meerut and Fatehgarh jails...1/n
There has been no justice even after three decades. By the Delhi High Court judgment on October 31, 2018, only half justice was delivered in the Hashimpura massacre case, but it still left many questions unanswered. What about Maliana where 72 Muslims were killed...2/n
by the 44th battalion of PAC led by RD Tripathi on May 23rd, 1987? An FIR on this massacre was lodged but unfortunately, there is no mention of the PAC personnel in the FIR. With a “shoddy” investigation by the State agency and a weak charge sheet by the prosecution,...3/n
Maliana’s Muslims feel they will not get justice. The trial in this case has not even crossed the first stage. In the past 34 years, 800 dates have been fixed for the hearing, but only three of the 35 prosecution witnesses have been examined by the Meerut court...4/n
The last hearing was held almost 4yrs ago. The case is pending before the Sess court of Meerut. The laxity of the prosecution can be gauged from the fact that the main FIR, the basis of entire case against 95 rioters from the nearby villages, suddenly “disappeared” in 2010...5/n
The session’s court in Meerut refused to go ahead with the trial without a copy of the FIR and a “search” for the FIR is still on. According to eyewitnesses “the PAC led by senior officers including the Commandant of the 44th battalion RD Tripathi entered Maliana...6/n
about 2:30 pm on 23rd May 1987 and killed more than 70 Muslims. On 27th May 1987, the then UP Chief Minister VB Singh announced a judicial inquiry into Maliana killings. On 29th May 1987, UP Government announced the suspension of the PAC Commandant RD Tripathi,...7/n
who ordered the firing in Maliana. Allegations were also made against him during the 1982 Meerut riots. But the fact is RD Tripathi was never suspended and instead was awarded promotions in service till his retirement...8/n
Now a PIL has been filed before the Division Bench of Allahabad High Court by this writer and former Director-General of Uttar Pradesh Police, Vibhuti Narain Rai IPS, a victim Ismail, who lost his 11 family members at Maliana on 23rd May 1987 and a lawyer MA Rashid,...9/n
who conducted the case in a Meerut trial court, seeking a fair and speedy trial by SIT and adequate compensation to the families of victims. More than three decades on, the Maliana massacre case and other custodial killings in Meerut during the 1987 riots has not progressed..10/n
progressed much as key court papers had mysteriously gone missing. The petitioners have also accused the UP Police and PAC personnel of intimidating victims and witnesses not to depose. After hearing this PIL, judges of the Allahabad HC on 19th April 2021 ordered that...11/n
the UP govt should file a counter affidavit.
When we are talking about the Hashimpura Massacre, let's just not forget a more heinous anti-Muslim massacre that happened in Maliana few kms away from the Hashimpura, where the justice is still no where in the sight!...12/n
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34 yrs after custodial massacre of Muslims by goons in uniform, justice is incomplete!
The survivors and members of the families of those killed in the #HashimpuraMassacre organised themselves to move the SC in 1995 to make the report public &to prosecute those indicted in it...
The SC refused to intervene, and instead asked the petitioners to approach the HC. The case remained unresolved in the HC, but the state government finally bowed to pressure in 1996 by filing criminal charge sheets against 19 personnel of the 41st batallion of the PAC...2/n
More than 64 senior officials were found guilty by the Crime Branch-CID, but the state govt claimed that departmental proceedings were sufficient against most of those found complicit in the crime. Not a single senior off is included in the charge sheet,..3/n #HashimpuraMassacre
How anti-Muslim sentiments among the police officials led to #HashimpuraMassacre:
The crime dates back to May 1987, when communal tempers India were dangerously inflamed by the dispute over the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The CongRSS govt by Rajv Gandhi had ordered the opening..1/n
of the locks of the medieval mosque, allowing Hindu prayers inside the disputed structure, and this had sparked angry protests by Muslims in many parts of the country including Meerut, where fierce riots broke out. An estimated 350 people died in these riots...2/n
The civil administration in UP failed to quell the mass violence and pressed into service 60 companies of the PAC, besides 50 gazetted police officers, the CRPF and the Army. The PAC had been raised specifically to assist in controlling riots,...3/n
— It has been 34 years since the night of 22 May, 1987 when about 45 Muslim men from Hashimpura, a settlement in Meerut, were rounded up and packed into the rear of a truck of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). #HashimpuraMassacre
— On that night of May 1987, 42 of those on board the truck were killed in two massacres in neighbouring Ghaziabad dist. One along the Upper Ganga canal near Muradnagar, nd the other along the Hindon canal in Makanpur in what hav since come to be known as the #HashimpuraMassacre.
— Thirty four years after the 1987 #HashimpuraMassacre, not much has changed for the survivors and the relatives of the people killed. The wounds are still fresh, the quest for justice is still an ongoing ordeal and they no more trust men in khakis.
— Two days ago, on Monday, May 17, a mosque in the central UP town of Barabanki was demolished by the administration in defiance of an order of the Allahabad high court. The Gareeb Nawaz Al Maroof Mosque had been around for at least six decades,...1/n
according to electricity bills held by its committee members, and was registered with the UP Sunni Waqf Board. "They demolished our century-old mosque. Thousands of people used to offer namaz here,” Maulana Abdul Mustafa, a mosque committee member said. #RebuildGhareebNawazMasjid
— But there is a backstory to the demolition which explains the relative ease with which this act of erasure planned several months ago was eventually accomplished...3/n
One thing was distinctly rotten about 2002 #GujaratGenocide: use of rape as a form of terror!
A LONG THREAD!👇🏻
Extreme cruelty and brutality has characterised all the big communal massacres of post-Independence India, but the Gujarat carnage stands out for its extensive...1/n
and specific targetting of women, young girls and children, who were subjected to the most vicious forms of violence. Women suffered the most bestial forms of brutality, sexual violence, including gang rape, insertion of objects into their bodies, stripping, and molestation...2/n
A majority of the women who suffered this violence were then burnt alive. Amongst the survivors, many have spoken about the assaults but many have been silenced for fear of further attacks and for fear of censure from their own families and community...3/n #GujaratGenocide
"They burnt our mosques, they burnt the Quran and even drank liquor inside", said a visibly moved Farhana. No one could hold their tears. Everyone kept crying in the hall. It was the third day of our relief at Mustafabad.
The next day I went to Madina Mosque at Shiv Vihar. The visuals were as if a wrath has been unleashed by monsters. The hindutva goons blasted the mosque with gas cylinders, even the fans melted down with the heat. After the fire cooled down, they came again to drink liquor there.
Empty liquor bottles and burnt pages of Quran lied everywhere on the floor. I took a burnt Quran with me as a grim reminder of what secularism does to minority in the country. This picture narrates the hypocrisy of the secularism of the country we reside in.