Dhule riots commission gets a new head after 17 months

The Maharashtra government had appointed the judicial commission in March 2013 after riots broke out in the north Maharashtra town of Dhule in January that year.

Nearly 17 months after the previous head of the Dhule riots panel resigned, the state government has appointed retired Bombay High Court judge K U Chandiwal to head the commission. Chandiwal has been given a six-month tenure to complete his findings.

In September 2014, former High Court judge Shrikant Malte, who was appointed by the state government to probe the January 2013 Dhule riots in which six Muslims lost their lives, resigned from his post. Malte is reported to have felt humiliated by words in the order granting the Commission an extension. The state, in its letter, had pointed to delays in the functioning of the commission and also said that this was the last extension that the government was providing.

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The Maharashtra government had appointed the judicial commission in March 2013 after riots broke out in the north Maharashtra town of Dhule in January that year.

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Malte was to probe the cause of riots as well as ascertain whether there were police excesses. Six people were killed, all falling to police bullets, on January 6 after riots broke out in Dhule. Local Muslims had complained of police excesses and claimed that policemen had deliberately shot to kill Muslim youths.

Lawyers involved with the functioning of the commission had in 2014 claimed that there was still a lot of work left for the commission to do. “I would say that so far we have managed to complete only 25 per cent of the total mandated work given to the commission,” a lawyer associated with the commission had said on Malte’s resignation.

“We have come to know that the new commission has been appointed. We hope that it will ensure that those who lost their lives and property get justice,” former Minority Commission member and secretary of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind’s legal aid committee Gulzar Azmi said.

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