AI INDEX: ASA 20/003/2004 26 February 2004
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: ASA 20/003/2004 (Public)
News Service No: 045
26 February 2004
India: Gujarat -- Denial of Justice for Victims
On
the second anniversary of the massacres in Gujarat (27 February),
Amnesty International expresses its solidarity with all the victims of
the Godhra and post-Godhra violence and with their families.
The organization reminds the international community that those
crimes remain unpunished and appeals for sustained pressure on the
Government of India to ensure that justice and reparation are
eventually offered to the victims.
"Two years after the massacres took place, most of the victims are
still demanding justice, but they are not being heard," Amnesty
International said. "Despite the efforts of the human rights community
and the scrutiny of the Supreme Court on some of the trials, the
Government of Gujarat and elements of the criminal justice system in
the state seem to be colluding in denying justice to the victims. This
attitude reopens the victims' wounds every day."
The Gujarat police in many cases reportedly failed to record complaints
or did it in a defective manner; diluted charges against the accused;
omitted their names from complaints, failed to organize identification
parades; record witnesses' statements and collect the corroborative
evidence necessary to identify the perpetrators. "At the end of this
doubtful exercise, half of the more than 4000 complaints filed in the
aftermath of the violence had to be unsurprisingly closed by the courts
due to lack of evidence presented by the police," the organization said.
The Best Bakery case, first of a few key cases to arrive at trial
stage, is a blatant example of how elements of the criminal justice
system are often backing each other in the state to ensure impunity for
the perpetrators of the violence. It appears that the investigation was
defective, the public prosecutor failed to adequately represent the
victims, the witnesses were not protected from threats and the judge
ended up mechanically acquitting the accused.
The entire trial was conducted in an atmosphere of hostility to
the victims' family. The acquittal verdict was shockingly upheld by the
High Court. On that occasion, the legitimate activities of human rights
defenders who supported witnesses were termed "not permissible under
the law". The basic principles of fair trial and of due process were
turned upside-down in this case and the entire proceedings turned into
a farcical exercise.
The hopes that the Supreme Court would reopen avenues of justice
by ordering the transfer of the investigations on the Best Bakery and
other key cases onto the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) were
again shaken in early February when a doubt was cast on the
impartiality of this agency. The former Commissioner of Police of
Ahmedabad - identified by eye-witnesses and by fact-finding reports for
having failed to protect the victims from their attackers during the
massacres - has recently been appointed to the post of Deputy Director
of the CBI itself.
"This appointment comes as a further humiliation for the victims
and it needs to be urgently reviewed by the Ministry of Home Affairs,
to ensure that the credibility of the agency is preserved," Amnesty
International added.
Background
Following an attack on a train in Godhra, Gujarat, on 27 February 2002
in which 59 Hindus were killed, violence of unprecedented brutality,
targeting the Muslim community, spread in the state and continued in
the next three months, leaving more than 2,000 people killed. The state
government and police took insufficient action to protect civilians
and, in many cases, may have colluded with the attackers and actively
participated in the violence.
In June 2003, 21 people accused of the murder of 14 people burned
to death in the Best Bakery in Baroda on 1 March 2002, were acquitted.
Following the acquittal, key witnesses indicated that they lied in
court because they had been threatened with death unless they did so.
Following a public outcry, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)
carried out an investigation and subsequently filed a petition in the
Supreme Court. The petition asked the court to provide protection to
witnesses, to ensure a retrial of the case in a court outside Gujarat
state and to order the transfer of other ongoing key cases to courts
outside Gujarat to ensure fair proceedings. During the proceedings, the
Supreme Court severely criticized the state government of Gujarat for
failing to provide justice to victims of the communal violence and
pointed to possible collusion between the state government and the
prosecution in subverting the cause of justice.
Following this criticism, the Gujarat Government sought a retrial of
the Best Bakery case. In December, the Gujarat High Court dismissed the
state government's appeal for a retrial on the basis that the
prosecution did not produce sufficient evidence. While the judgement
blamed police for failing to record complaints in the case, it also
accused human rights defenders working to ensure justice of setting up
a parallel investigative agency. On 21 February, the Government of
Gujarat, under pressure from the Supreme Court itself, finally filed
their appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court judgement. The
next expected date of hearing in the case is 27 February.
Public Document
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For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org
For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org
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