On Wednesday, a little over 31 years later, the Delhi high court delivered closure, convicting 16 former UP Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel of shooting dead 42 Muslim men (38 bodies were found) in Meerut's Hashimpura area in the sweltering night of May 22, 1987 and sentencing them to imprisonment for the remainder of their natural lives.
The judgment overturned a trial court's acquittal in 2015 of the accused.
The men had been shot and thrown into an irrigation canal. A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel said it was a case of "targeted killings of persons belonging to one minority community". The judges did not go into hearing arguments on sentencing and ordered them jailed for life.
IPC Section 302 of IPC, dealing with murder, provides for only a life term or the death penalty.
The bench also convicted the 16 former PAC personnel of kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code.
"The present case involved the abduction of 42 to 45 persons belonging to the minority community and the killing of 38 of them soon after the incident of riots in which two rifles of the PAC were allegedly taken away by the rioters. It points to the disproportionate reaction by the PAC in targeting members of the minority community," the bench observed.
The court noted that the families of the victims had to wait 31 years to get justice and monetary relief could not be considered adequate compensation. It directed the convicts to surrender on or before November 22. All 16 convicts have retired from service.
"The gravity of the crime is obvious. At the same time, the court is aware that this case has been pending for over three decades for reasons not entirely attributable to the accused. Their acquittal by the trial court 28 years after the event is reversed by this court, 31 years after the event. The present age of the accused persons has also therefore to be accounted for. The court also notes that substantial sums by way of compensation have been disbursed to the victims and their families," it observed while deciding petitions challenging the trial court's acquittal of the 16 PAC men of charges of murder and other crimes.
It said the evidence against the PAC personnel was 'clinching' in nature and the charges against them stood true beyond reasonable doubt.
The high court had on September 6 reserved its verdict on the appeals filed by Uttar Pradesh, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and some private parties, including a survivor of the massacre, Zulfiqar Nasir. It had also reserved judgment on BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking further investigation to ascertain the alleged role of then minister of state for home P Chidambaram in the case, a plea that was declined on Wednesday.
The court had on February 17, 2016 tagged Swamy's plea with the other petitions in the matter.
On March 21, 2015, a trial court had acquitted the 16 former PAC personnel by giving them the benefit of doubt, saying their identities could not be established due to lack of evidence. Nineteen people were named as accused and charges were framed against 17 - for murder, attempted murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy - by the court here in 2006. The case was transferred to Delhi on the Supreme Court's direction in September 2002 following a petition by the families of the massacre victims and survivors. Of the 17 accused, the trial court had acquitted 16; one person had died during trial.
The NHRC had intervened in 2015 to seek a further probe.
from Times of India https://ift.tt/2yIXBBV
