Mumbai riots: NCM to hold public hearing

The entire National Commission of Minorities 8212; its five members and its secretariat 8212; would be in Mumbai on September 5 and 6...

The entire National Commission of Minorities NCM 8212; its five members and its secretariat 8212; would be in Mumbai on September 5 and 6, to hold a public hearing of all the victims of the Mumbai communal riots of 1992-93. The Commission will be speaking to victims and their families and will record any complaints or grievances they may have on the implementation of the Commission8217;s recommendations. The idea is to prepare a report on the progress over the past 14 years.

This move is also being seen as significant in the light of the UPA8217;s anxiety to go full steam ahead on matters relating to minority justice and welfare, in case the current political impasse on the nuclear deal does eventually lead to mid-term polls.

While the NCM8217;s public hearing is on the first day, meetings with senior officials and members of the government are scheduled for the next day. Interestingly, as Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh 8212; who had earlier announced his intention to set up fast-track courts on the matter 8212; is traveling on those days, Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R R Patil would be meeting the Commission.

This is the first time that a full meeting of the Commission is being held in Mumbai. Under the chairmanship of Hamid Ansari before he resigned to stand for elections for Vice-President, the Commission had recently decided to hold every alternate meeting in a city outside Delhi. Meetings have already been held in Chennai and Bangalore under this new arrangement.

NCM Member Prof Zoya Hasan, in the Chennai meeting on July 2, had raised the issue of the implementation of the Srikrishna Commission recommendations, before the matter was taken up by the Supreme Court and before the Mumbai blast judgements were announced. However, says Hasan; 8220;the NCM has been taking up incidents like Gujarat and Mumbai now very seriously, as they were cases that involved mass violence. The NCM even sent teams to Malegaon last year.8221;

The Srikrishna Commission submitted its report on February 16, 1998. It named several police officers and political leaders including several prominent names from the Shiv Sena and some from the BJP. The findings were however, rejected by the Shiv Sena-BJP government in the state at the time.

However, with the convictions in the 1993 bomb blasts being given recently, there were loud calls for bringing the perpetrators of the violence in the riots to book. The Srikrishna Commission clearly makes the connection between the riots and the blasts and says the blasts were a direct reaction to the rioting in the city following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

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A PIL was also registered in the Supreme Court on the implementation of the Srikrishna recommendations. The Supreme Court is to give its final order the matter in October.