Ketki Angre
Article publised in Daily Saamna
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena has reacted angrily to suggestions that the Srikrishna Commission Report on the 1992-93 riots in Mumbai be reopened.
In a provocative artilce in the party’s mouthpiece Saamna the Sena says reopening the cases against the rioters means that ‘the Hindus will hang’.
”This is nothing but vote bank politics. This is something the Congress has always indulged in. If they want to politicise the issue and drag the name of leader, Sena or others, then all I can do is warn that this might not be a good sign for the times to come,” said Sanjay Raut, Editor, Saamna.
The Sena’s warning eerily echoes their statement when they had rejected the Srikrishna Commissin report in 1998 calling the report anti-Hindu.
Many Sena leaders were indicted by the report for their role in the riots including Bal Thackery, Madhukar Satpodar, Gajana Kirtikar and several others.
Intense pressure
But the state government is under intense pressure to act on the report, from its own high command.
”Whatever we have given in the manifesto we are bound by it. And also there’s pressure from the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court,” said Prabha Rau, MPCC Chief.
On Tuesday, the Bombay High Court acted on a petition on one of the episodes of the riots, in which police firing on a Muslim mob in January 1993, led to the death of seven people, but there was no action against the police.
”The government has decided that some of the cases be looked into again. We have formed a team that will do so but the government will have to take the final decision,” said K L Prasad, Joint Commissioner (Law and Order).
The court has told the state to file an affidavit in two weeks time.
Something about how the Srikrishna report was always a political football, and now, it’s reopening has seen the surfacing of the same politics once again.
Source: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence
