Despair,scepticism still writ large on riot survivors

For Magru and most of his generation,what is left is just anger and discontent.

As the UPA government is set to provide permission to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to prosecute former Delhi Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in four cases in 1984 riots,the survivors call it just another “state farce”.

“It has been 25 years and these people only kept growing bigger and more important. They went unpunished and we do not think they will ever be punished,” says Magru. “One after the other,even the survivors are dying and one day there will be no witnesses left.”

In a clustered neighbourhood in Tilak Vihar in West Delhi,a few riot survivors delve into the injustices done and their disillusionment with justice.

“How many commissions have they set up and what has come out?” says Mohan Singh (55),the president of the 1984 Riot Victim Camp in Tilak Vihar. “It has been 25 years. What can we hope for when Congress was giving tickets to Sajjan and Tytler in the elections and then ended up giving it to his brother?”

Back in ‘84,Mohan lived in Trilok Puri,and saw his two brothers being murdered by a mob. For him,justice is just an idea now.

“If only they had punished Sajjan Kumar and Tytler then,Gujarat would never have happened,” he says,“it was the Congress which set a precedent”.

Roshan Singh,a government employee in his early 40s,puts no stock in the news about commissions and prosecutions that hit the headlines. The news of Kumar’s prosecution did not mean much to him. “Earlier,there was some hopeful anticipation and I thought there were possibilities of punishing Sajjan and Tytler and those who massacred innocents,but now I have understood that the government will not touch them,” he says.

Roshan’s four brothers and father were killed outside their home in Jwalapuri in West Delhi. He himself slipped past the rioters dressed as a girl alongwith his girl cousins and survived.

Sajjan Kumar,Babu Singh Dukhiya,another riot victim,says,is getting old each passing day and is living comfortably without even the slightest fear that he might have to answer for his deeds.

“When will he be punished and who will punish him?” asks Dukhiya. “Time has sedated us,we have even stopped hoping now.”