Then, to add insult to injury, the ‘Muslim’ bomb trial was conducted in a high-profile TADA court, while the ‘Hindu’ riot trial was quietly consigned to a commission of inquiry — that classic Indian euphemism for official stonewalling. Headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna, a retired Supreme Court judge, the commission was, predictably, denied the authority to prosecute the guilty. Presumably, its function was to be purely therapeutic, a chance for victims to sob on a sympathetic judicial shoulder.

But Justice Srikrishna — a devout Hindu — went beyond the call of dharma, to equal the task of the TADA Court. For five gruelling years, the judge summoned 502 witnesses, whose depositions ran into 9655 pages, painstakingly recorded 2903 documents totalling about 15,000 sheets of evidence, and passed 536 orders to present a 700-page report on February 16, 1998.

It is a damning document, indicting 31 policemen, an “effete” political leadership that waffled over arresting the violence, and several saffron leaders including Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray “who, like a veteran general, commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organised attacks against Muslims.” Also accused are the BJP’s Gopinath Munde, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Ram Naik, for blatantly inciting the riots. Although Sarpotdar and Munde were later booked under the National Security Act and TADA for possession of illegal weapons, the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition that came to power in 1995 dropped all cases against the four. Subsequently, in January 1996, the Maharashtra government brazenly disbanded the commission altogether. It was forced to revive it in May 1996 after a public outcry.

... contd.