CONCEPT – THE HASHIMPURA MASSACRE

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CONCEPT – THE HASHIMPURA MASSACRE

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• What is it? The Hashimpura massacre is an incident of mass murder which took place on 22 May 1987 near Meerut in UP, during the 1987 Meerut communal riots (during March to June 1987 with death toll of 350).
• Allegations: It is alleged that 19 personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) rounded up 42 youths from the Hashimpura mohalla, took them to the outskirts of the city, shot them in cold blood and dumped their bodies in a nearby irrigation canal. A few days later, the dead bodies were found floating in the canal and a case of murder was registered.
• The backdrop: After communal riots had taken over Meerut in April 1987, the PAC was called in, but was withdrawn as the riots subsided. However violence erupted again around 19 May, when 10 people were killed, thus the Army was called out to stage a flag march. The following day, mobs turned violent, and shoot-at-sight orders were issued on 20 May 1987.
• The massacre: On the night of 22 May 1987, 19 PAC personnel, under platoon commander Surinder Pal Singh, rounded up Muslims in the Hashimpur mohalla in Meerut. They took about 40–45 of them, in a truck to the Upper Ganga canal in Murad Nagar, Ghaziabad district instead of taking them to the police station. Here some were shot, one by one, and thrown into the canal. A bullet also injured one of the PAC constables. Four of those shot escaped by pretending to be dead and then swimming away. One of them filed a first information report (FIR) at the Murad Nagar Police Station.

• Enquiry and judicial proceedings: After the inquiry, a chargesheet was filed with the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Ghaziabad in 1996 under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), who subsequently issued warrants for the accused policemen to appear before the court.

1. Bailable warrants were issued 23 times against them between 1994 and 2000, yet none of them appeared in court.
2. This was followed by non-bailable warrants which were issued 17 times between April 1998 and April 2000, to no avail.
3. Eventually, under public pressure, 16 of the accused surrendered before the Ghaziabad court in 2000, and were subsequently released on bail and were back in service.
4. In 2001, after an inordinate delay in pre-trial proceedings at Ghaziabad, kin of victims and survivors filed a petition before the Supreme Court for transferring the case from Ghaziabad to New Delhi, which the Supreme Court granted in September, 2002.
5. But the case couldn't start, as the state government didn't appoint a Special Public Prosecutor for the case till November 2004.
6. Finally, in May 2006, charges were filed against all the accused PAC men for murder, conspiracy to murder, attempt to murder, and tampering with evidence, etc. under Sections 302/ 120B/ 307/ 201/ 149/ 364/ 148/ 147 of the Indian Penal Code, and the trial was scheduled to begin in July.
7. By May 2010, 63 of the 161 persons listed as witnesses, by CB-CID of Uttar Pradesh Police which investigated the case, had been examined. On 19 May 2010, 4 witnesses in the case recorded their statements in front of Additional Sessions Judge, Manu Rai Sethi at a Delhi Court. These include Sirajuddin, Abdul Gaffar, Abdul Hamid and the then Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Law and Order G L Sharma. However none of the eyewitnesses could recognize any of the accused PAC personnel.
8. Tis Hazari Court, Delhi on 21 March 2015 acquitted all 16 of the accused in the Hashimpura massacre case of 1987, due to insufficient evidence. The UP Government challenged the order of the trial court in Delhi High Court and appealed the decision.Sh Zafaryab Jilani,
9. In May 2015, Uttar Pradesh Government announced a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh to family of each victim.
10. On October 31st, 2018, the Delhi High Court convicted the 16 personnel of the PAC and sentenced them to life imprisonment, overturning the trial courts verdict. 

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