By Muslim Mirror News
Hyderabad: Even after seven years, justice still eluded to victims of the Makkah Masjid bomb blast that took place on Friday in 2007. Paying homage to blast and subsequent police firing victims, the right organization Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee has demanded on Sunday that the real terrorists responsible for the blasts and tainted police officers should be punished as well as Advocate Ravichander’s report should be presented in the newly elected separate Telangana Assembly and its recommendations should be implemented immediately.
Expressing its solidarity with the families of victims of bomb terror, ‘police terror’ and ‘media terror’, the Committee highlighted the plight of victims and their families and said the state government has failed to address their sufferings. It also accused investigating agencies of bias and inaction against the culprits. “It seems that the government of India and investigating agencies are not serious to investigate this case instead they are behaving in biased manner because the victims are Muslims and the criminals are Hindutva terrorists. It has been clearly proved that all the bomb blasts in the country including the Makkah Masjid bomb blast have been perpetrated and executed by the Hindutva terrorists and this is the reason that they are being shielded and protected”.
Committee general secretary Lateef Mohammed Khan pointed out that the few ‘Hindutva terrorists’ who were arrested in the case got bail due to shoddy investigation while the innocent Muslim youths arrested in the case were first put under illegal detention, tortured and put behind bars for months together without trial. By this the fact comes out that the state and the investigating agencies are not serious and also the judiciary is playing biased role towards Muslims, he added.
“We strongly feel that there was definite nexus between the police personnel who have Hindutva mentality and the Hindutva organizations during the period of blasts in the country. The reason behind this belief is that soon after the Makkah Masjid bomb blast, when the people were helping the blast victims in shifting them to hospitals, police opened fire on those people, even few media personnel were the witness to this, but media remained silent on this”. He said the confidential report of police revealed many blunders. After that on the name of investigation of bomb blast, police started picking up hundreds and hundreds of Muslim youths, then illegally detained and tortured them mercilessly.
The Committee has filed a petition in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh in 2007 challenging the police firing on innocent Muslims after the Makkah Masjid bomb blast and pleaded to the court to direct the police to register murder cases against those police personnel who involved in firing. High Court had issued notices to the state and police officials as to why a case should not be registered under the section 302. Andhra Pradesh government appointed senior lawyers to defend its police officers. After a number of hearings the A.P. High Court directed the petitioners to approach the Supreme Court saying, “The issue involved in this matter has already been adjudicated and decided by a Larger Bench of this Court. However, the State Government has approached the Supreme Court against the High Court verdict. Counsel for the State government has informed that the case has been still pending before the Apex Court. As per the directions of the High Court, CLMC is planning to approach Apex Court.
Lateef Khan also stated that when the matter was in the A.P. High Court, the A.P. government not only defended the tainted police personnel by appointing top most lawyers, and also delayed the process from 2007 to 2014 and in this period of time the tainted policemen were awarded and rewarded with promotions of higher posts. For example Rajiv Trivedi, Harish Kumar Gupta and Ramchandran who were actually responsible for the firing and torture of Muslim youths. The state government has not even presented the torture report by Advocate Ravichander who was appointed by the A.P. State Minority Commission, in which it is clearly mentioned that police brutally tortured the Muslim youths and also gave recommendations for their counseling and rehabilitation.
CLMC said by giving meager amount of money as compensation is not justice. Justice should be based on equity. The government has not taken any measures to provide justice even after the completion of seven years of Makkah Masjid bomb blast. The demand of justice is that first of all government should withdraw all the cases registered against Muslim youths in connection with the blasts.
At a time when the A.P. State is bifurcated and elections also held successfully, the CLMC demands that new government of Telangana should punish real terrorists involved in the blasts and tainted police officers also be given exemplary punishment, so that no other innocent is targeted and tortured. It also demands that measures should be taken for the rehabilitation of Muslim youths and they should be given government jobs.