Life for the 15 Hindus charged with the Ayodhya inter-religious violence
New Delhi (AsiaNews) – The Court of Kanpur in Northern India has condemned 15 Hindu’s for having burned alive 11 Muslims during the Mumbai inter-religious clashes in 1992-‘93. The Muslims were assassinated in Govind Nagar district on December 10th 1992. Two of those victims were women, one a small child. The sentence, pronounced yesterday, provoked widespread indignation among the family and friends of the victims. The crowd in the courtroom shouted slogans against the administration and judges.
In all 25 people were accused of various crimes ranging from “participation in the unrest” to “homicide with intent”. The trail has been ongoing for almost 15 years. Over this period of time one of the accused has since died while a further 9 have been absolved.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya by Hindu fundamentalists provoked one of the worst waves of inter-religious violence between the two communities that India has ever witnessed. About 2 thousand people were killed. Mainly Muslims, in Kanpur, Surat; 900 victims alone in Mumbai. It is believed that the Mumbai attacks in 1993 in which 257 people died were the Muslim response to the Hindu atrocity.
But the real instigators of the ’92-’93 unrest remain unpunished. The Srikrishna Commission, a former Mumbai high court judge, was charged with investigating the case, but the “uncomfortable” results of his inquest were never even considered by the official court. Srikrishna pointed his finger against the organised right wing Hindu nationalist group, Shiva Sena (the organised wing of Hindu militants) and its infamous leader Bal Thackery. These apparently organised pogroms against the Muslim community. Without taking into consideration the complicity of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who held power at the time in Mumbai, or the police who simply stood by and watched as the massacre unfolded.
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