MUMBAI, 5 October 2007 — A delegation of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which recently visited Mumbai, said that minorities, especially Muslims, have lost faith in Maharashtra government in view of the inordinate delay in implementing the findings and recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission report concerning the 1992 communal riots in Mumbai.
Criticizing the Congress-led Democratic Front (DF) government in the state, the panel said Muslims were too eager to see the recommendations of the commission implemented by the state government. The demand for implementing the recommendations has gained momentum after the verdict in the 1993 bomb blasts case. The state government had earlier assured the panel of speedy implementation of the report.
NCM Chairman Mohammed Shafi Qureshi and his delegation, however, were not satisfied with the assurances given by the state government and the way things progressed. Qureshi said, “Muslims and minorities continue to live in fear in Maharashtra. Relatives of the riot victims have lost faith in the state. The Muslims are so terrorized that they even fear to go to a police station to register a case, as they feel police would drive them away because of their minority status.”
Qureshi said the panel had an interactive session with Muslims in Mumbai. “A woman told the panel that when she visited a police station to inquire about her brothers, policemen present there made obscene remarks and gestures,” the NCM chairman said.
He said Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh assured the NCM panel that the Srikrishna Commission report would be implemented, cases would be reopened and fast-track courts would be set up to try those cases. “But he did not tell the panel of any time frame for the implementation of the recommendations nor did he give any written assurances,” Qureshi said.
The panel, Qureshi said, pressed the state government to compensate the riot victims with an amount equal to the one given to the victims of the anti-Sikh riots in 1984. Deshmukh also assured the NCM panel that the government would take immediate action against 38 police officials indicted in the Srikrishna report, Qureshi said.
Meanwhile, the Central Administrative Tribunal in a landmark judgment on Wednesday ruled that Indian Police Service (IPS) officers can be posted to a non-cadre post.
Dismissing an appeal filed by Madhav Chitale, an IPS officer and superintendent of police (railways) Nagpur, the tribunal in its order said that if a cadre post was not vacant, the IPS officer could be posted to a non-cadre post.
