6 months on, hope of relief in Gujarat

The decision was taken after verification by both the police and revenue agencies. Since the persons have been missing for so long, they are presumed dead.

It was about a month ago that the collectorate had issued a public notice, asking relatives of missing persons to lodge claims for compensation. It received 112 applications from riot victims.

The Police Commissioner’s office had compiled a list of 92 missing persons, as on May 31.

The police list was then sent for verification to the revenue authorities. Names received by the Collectorate were verified by the police and also by the revenue authorities.

It was after this exercise that 43 applications were cleared for the Rs 1.5 lakh compensation announced by the State Government. These are mostly cases from the police list.

Sources said that the police have, so far, conducted verification of 48 of the applications received by the Collectorate and sent reports to the district authorities.

It was found that in four of the cases, the persons had either returned or the claim was otherwise false.

‘‘In some others cases, people had applied for compensation for a person who died before or after the communal riots,’’ said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Control) J R. Rathore.

The process of verification is still on.

The district authorities have recently given the police a list of 22 missing persons from Naroda who figure in the May 31 list. However, their applications have not been received by the district collectorate yet.

‘‘The police and the revenue authorities are both engaged in collecting evidence about the claims. Till it is over, I cannot give the exact number of missing persons,’’ said Additional Deputy Resident Collector G D Desai.