Thread by @SaffronDiaries

Thread: #MalianaMassacre a Tale of Injustice in India

It has been 36 years since 72 Muslims were brutally killed in the small town of #Maliana, in #UttarPradesh by provincial police force. On 01 April, 40 accused in the #massacre during the 1987 riots in Maliana...,

...Meerut were acquitted, while 23 accused have left this world and 30 accused are missing, against whom the trial will continue. The prosecution failed to produce sufficient evidence before the court, due to which benefit of doubt was given to the accused. #muslimsinindia

It took 36 years for the court to pronounce the verdict i.e. those who were accused in youth were acquitted in old age and children whose parents were killed have crossed puberty. Their families still await even the first glimmer of justice. #MalianaMassacre #IndianSupremeCourt

The #Maliana case, pending in a local court, stands as a blot on our criminal-justice system. Tensions had been high in #Maliana due to the riots in Meerut that followed protests against the unlocking of the #babrimasjid in #Ayodhya, for Hindu worship.
#MalianaMassacre

However, residents of #Maliana described the violence in the town as the targetted killing of #Muslims by state forces. A day earlier, at least 42 Muslim men had been killed in #Hashimpura, a neighbourhood in Meerut. #MalianaMassacre

Yaqub Ali, on whose complaint the sole FIR was lodged in the incident, had filed a case against 93 people. In the report, the claimant had written that while setting fire, all the people gathered together and attacked with the intention of murder. #MalianaMassacre

We were mercilessly beaten up and had it not been a generous Sub-Inspector, we would have been killed,” he alleged. He said he was made to sign certain papers that he later came to know became the basis for the only FIR in the case. #MalianaMassacre #IndianPolice

Rights activists and #Muslim bodies have kept decrying the delay in delivery of justice seeking conviction, yet no one found guilty in the case, as the evidence was not against anyone. Thus, the court acquitted the alleged culprits.