Hashimpura massacre: Police initiate investigation into ‘destruction of evidence’

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“The NHRC moved an application in the Delhi High Court in the case and sought these details. The court agreed to it, following which I faxed the letter to the then Meerut SSP,” Additional Advocate General Zafaryab Jilani, who is representing the state government in the court, told The Indian Express.

A total of 42 people were killed, allegedly by PAC personnel, on May 22, 1987. Nineteen personnel were accused. In March 2015 a trial court had acquitted 16 of them.

Three accused died in the meantime. The high court is hearing appeal against the trial court order.

The issue of destruction of evidence surfaced when the then Meerut SSP, Dinesh Chand Dubey, in his reply to the government in January this year said that records pertaining to the postings of police officers and employees in Meerut at that time were destroyed on January 4, 2006, as the period for the upkeep had lapsed.

Zulfikar Nasir, a resident of Hashimpura and a witness to the massacre, has alleged that the police destroyed the evidence to weaken the case. “They are doing so at the behest of the state and the central governments but we have full faith in the court and are hopeful of getting justice,” he said.