A massacre case which has been awaiting trial for 18 years was adjourned again last week after it took a bizarre turn. A Delhi court hearing the case of the Maliana massacre—in which 19 Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel allegedly shot 40 youth from the Muslim neighbourhood of Hashimpura, Meerut—was told that one of the accused, Ram Dhyan, was not present as he was in jail in Varanasi. Out on bail in the massacre case, Dhyan allegedly murdered four persons, including three PAC men, in Azamgarh in the last week of February, the court was told. The sessions court in Tis Hazari which has been hearing the case since October 2002—after the Supreme Court transferred the case from UP to Delhi—had to adjourn it once again. As many as 19 PAC personnel including the platoon commander Surendra Pal Singh were booked for murder, criminal conspiracy and for destroying evidence in the 1987 massacre. While two of the accused have died, the rest are out on bail and back in service. As a fallout of the Maliana riots, male members from the Muslim families of Hashimpura were rounded up, herded into trucks and shot in cold blood, allegedly by UP’s PAC personnel. With the prosecution dragging its feet, the Supreme Court ordered that the case be transferred to Delhi. The victims and survivors of the massacre were daily wage labourers and poor weavers. Maulana Mohammed Yameen, former councillor and social worker, who has been representing the victims at the hearings, says: ‘‘The UP government clearly does not want this case to go on. Its intentions are clearly communal in nature.’’ Though the chargesheet was filed in 1997, 10 years after the massacre, charges are yet to be framed against the accused. First, there was no Special Public Prosecutor and when one was appointed he was removed because of lack of experience. Rebecca John and Vrinda Grover, counsel for the complainant, say they are apprehensive about the outcome of the case.
