This refers to the report, “Modi ally convicted over deadly India riots granted bail.” (July 30)

The butcher of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 anti-Muslims riots, Maya Kodnani, walked free after a court granted bail to her. Kodnani has been the ally of Narendra Modi, currently the prime minister, who is still seen as the one who presided over the massacre that killed nearly 2,000 Muslims. And hence Modi’s influence in getting bail to Kodnani who was facing life sentence cannot be ruled out.

With Modi having ensconced himself in power, there have been some disturbing news emanating from India once again. The latest in the series of such disturbing news is that the victims of custodial deaths in Maharashtra appear to be only from the minority community. This is the observation of the Bombay High Court. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 1,418 custodial deaths took place in India between 1999 and 2013, and around 23 percent of these (or 333) were reported from Maharashtra. For the majority of the 15 years, the state topped the custodial death charts.

The judges said on Thursday that they want to hear all custodial death cases together and have appointed Yug Chaudhry as amicus curiae (friend of the court) to assist the court, as “we want to do something about this.”

I would request the judges as also to the government of the India to take into account not only the custodial deaths in one state but also in all the jails in the country. I am sure it will open a Pandora’s box. The issue does not stop here. Who will ascertain facts related to those killed in encounters and see how many of them are from the minority community? Also how many Muslims are languishing in different jails without any trials.

A case in point: All the eight Muslims held under a draconian Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA), falsely implicated in a terrorist act, have been released by the Supreme Court after they spent five to six years in jail for no fault of theirs.