Ignoring Srikrishna Commission recommendations at a price

It’s been three weeks since the chief minister announced a judicial inquiry into the January 6 Dhule riots, which left six Muslims dead in police firing. But the judge who will head the inquiry has not been named yet. Providing the commission with the required office and staff and sending notices to all concerned seeking information will take some more time. Hopefully, the commission will reveal the truth of the riots, the way the Justice BN Srikrishna Commission did about the 1992-93 Mumbai riots.

Then what? In the concluding months of his inquiry, Justice Srikrishna had joked that his report would probably be thrown into the sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. Short of doing that, the governments that have ruled the state since 1998 (when the report was submitted) have done everything to reject its recommendations.

So we go from riot to riot. Each riot throws up similar allegations. Would the police have fired only at Muslim rioters in Dhule had the 31 policemen indicted by the Srikrishna commission been punished? Every one of them earned his name in that list of rogues for their communal conduct.

The government, under pressure from citizens’ petitions in the Supreme Court, did “punish” a few, by withholding their increments and promotions for a couple of years, or so it claimed in court. But was even this meagre punishment publicised by senior officers, to send a message to the force that they would have to pay for their actions the next time Hindu-Muslim riots broke out? Not a word was said, which is why suspicion lingers that the action taken remained confined to the affidavit presented in court.

Therefore, the message that did go out loud and clear was that far from punishing policemen indicted by a sitting high court judge for murder of innocent Muslims, the government would raise heaven and hell to protect the killers in uniform. And any officer who ordered restraint while dealing with violent Muslims would be punished.

But the Srikrishna report was not only about the 31 delinquent policemen. Improving intelligence by interacting closely with the public and recruiting more Urdu-knowing policemen, are two recommendations that could have prevented the riot in Dhule, specially because there was one only four years ago.

Justice Srikrishna had suggested that those arrested for rioting should be questioned about their links with communal organisations, and their answers be recorded in their interrogatory sheets. This would help tag them and their organisations for preventive or detective action the next time there was any communal tension occurred. Has the police drawn up the pro forma for the interrogatory sheets?

The commission had spelt out the importance of apolitical peace committees. Were any constituted in Dhule after the 2008 violence in which 10 people died? Did the Dhule police ask Julio Ribeiro and Satish Sahney for help to set up the kind of effective mohalla committees they did in Mumbai?

Did they at least talk to their own former superintendent of police, Suresh Khopade, whose was instrumental in setting up mohalla committees in Bhiwandi that have prevented any further riots there?

Such committees would have been able to resolve the petty quarrel over payment of a hotel bill that led to mobs coming out on both sides on January 6.

The Srikrishna commission advised the police to learn riot-control techniques from the West to avoid loss of lives. There never will be a day, at least in India, that stones will stop being thrown at the police. So will the police keep shooting down stone-throwers?

The Srikrishna report is not the Maharashtra police’s favourite document. They’ve ignored it, and are carrying on with their same old indifferent and communal conduct. Ordinary citizens, both Hindus and Muslims, have paid the price as riots have erupted unchecked. But so have the police. Their refusal to change has led to such a high level of alienation among Muslim youth, that they see nothing wrong in turning on the police at the slightest provocation. And the elders seem to be backing them.

Will the Dhule commission report be similarly ignored? Or will it be suppressed like the Justice KN Patil inquiry report on the 2001 Malegaon riots? Don’t forget 2014 is an election year.

The writer is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist