Train fire case highlights India's stagnant courts

[S_O_C_O_M]

Train fire case highlights India's stagnant courts​

Anti-Muslim violence raged for three days amid scenes of horrifying violence in which many people were set alight


By Rajesh Joshi (AFP) – 2 hours ago

AHMEDABAD, India — Maulvi Hussain Umarji, a Muslim cleric from Godhra in Gujarat state, western India, spent nine years in jail waiting for a court hearing to clear his name.

He was accused of being the mastermind of a train fire at the town's station in 2002 that killed 59 Hindu pilgrims, sparking some of India's worst communal violence since independence in which 2,000 people died.

Umarji was finally acquitted last week but while his family are relieved, they are also angry about how long it took to prove his innocence amid wider claims that Muslims have been set up by police.

"Who could bring back the years that my father spent in jail for no fault of his own?" his son, Saeed Umarji, told AFP. "I've spent nine years of my youth running between police stations and jail. Am I going to get it back? No.

"There has to be change in our judicial system for speedier disposal of cases. If one innocent person has to wait so long to get acquitted, where are we headed?"

Thirty-one Muslim men were convicted for hatching a conspiracy to pour petrol into the train and set it on fire to kill Hindus travelling inside. Eleven were sentenced to death on Tuesday and the remainder jailed for life.

But 63 others were cleared, including Umarji, who was accused of being the mastermind of the conspiracy. The state may still appeal the "not guilty" verdicts in the state High Court.

Saeed Umarji's complaints about India's slow-moving justice system reflect longstanding concerns in government and at the Law Commission of India, which has warned that delays in judgments are eroding public trust in the courts.

"Pendency is very high and alarming," the Law Commission said in a 2009 paper to the government on legal reform. "It is high time to restore the confidence of people in the judiciary by providing speedy justice."

The issues at stake in the Godhra verdicts also go beyond the courts, with the case spotlighting the role of religion in politics in Gujarat and discrimination against Muslims in the country at large.

Hindu nationalist chief minister Narendra Modi was accused of doing little to stop the anti-Muslim violence, which raged for three days amid scenes of horrifying violence in which many people were set alight or butchered.

In the following days, about 140 Muslim men were rounded up after the fire and nearly 100 put on trial.

Human Rights Watch has said in a recent report that India's Hindu-dominated police employed similar tactics after a spate of bomb attacks in 2008, with torture in custody, abuse of process and forced confessions commonplace.

"It's part of the police psychology," said Mumbai lawyer Ejaq Naqvi, who represented one of two Indian Muslim men who were acquitted of helping the 10 Islamist extremists who attacked the city in November 2008.

"They look at people they think are among the criminal classes and single out people from minority communities, especially Muslims."

The sheer number of acquittals raises question marks over the standard and impartiality of the police investigation and prosecution, observers say.

For Javed Anand, general secretary of the campaign group Muslims for a Secular Democracy, the Godhra case reflects a wider anti-Muslim bias in Indian society in areas from housing to education and employment.

"The situation of the Indian Muslim has become like it was to be an African-American in the United States," he told AFP, pointing out that similar action was not taken against those involved in the rioting after the fire.

In 2007, the investigative magazine Tehelka filmed local Hindu activists confessing to making up their statements to police, while other prosecution witnesses have admitted to pressure to give false accounts of the violence.

The chief investigating policeman was also caught on a hidden camera making a series of anti-Muslim remarks, the magazine claims.

AFP: Train fire case highlights India's stagnant courts

 

[kavish]

Train fire case highlights India's stagnant courts​

Anti-Muslim violence raged for three days amid scenes of horrifying violence in which many people were set alight


By Rajesh Joshi (AFP) – 2 hours ago

AHMEDABAD, India — Maulvi Hussain Umarji, a Muslim cleric from Godhra in Gujarat state, western India, spent nine years in jail waiting for a court hearing to clear his name.

He was accused of being the mastermind of a train fire at the town's station in 2002 that killed 59 Hindu pilgrims, sparking some of India's worst communal violence since independence in which 2,000 people died.

Umarji was finally acquitted last week but while his family are relieved, they are also angry about how long it took to prove his innocence amid wider claims that Muslims have been set up by police.

"Who could bring back the years that my father spent in jail for no fault of his own?" his son, Saeed Umarji, told AFP. "I've spent nine years of my youth running between police stations and jail. Am I going to get it back? No.

"There has to be change in our judicial system for speedier disposal of cases. If one innocent person has to wait so long to get acquitted, where are we headed?"

Thirty-one Muslim men were convicted for hatching a conspiracy to pour petrol into the train and set it on fire to kill Hindus travelling inside. Eleven were sentenced to death on Tuesday and the remainder jailed for life.

But 63 others were cleared, including Umarji, who was accused of being the mastermind of the conspiracy. The state may still appeal the "not guilty" verdicts in the state High Court.

Saeed Umarji's complaints about India's slow-moving justice system reflect longstanding concerns in government and at the Law Commission of India, which has warned that delays in judgments are eroding public trust in the courts.

"Pendency is very high and alarming," the Law Commission said in a 2009 paper to the government on legal reform. "It is high time to restore the confidence of people in the judiciary by providing speedy justice."

The issues at stake in the Godhra verdicts also go beyond the courts, with the case spotlighting the role of religion in politics in Gujarat and discrimination against Muslims in the country at large.

Hindu nationalist chief minister Narendra Modi was accused of doing little to stop the anti-Muslim violence, which raged for three days amid scenes of horrifying violence in which many people were set alight or butchered.

In the following days, about 140 Muslim men were rounded up after the fire and nearly 100 put on trial.

Human Rights Watch has said in a recent report that India's Hindu-dominated police employed similar tactics after a spate of bomb attacks in 2008, with torture in custody, abuse of process and forced confessions commonplace.

"It's part of the police psychology," said Mumbai lawyer Ejaq Naqvi, who represented one of two Indian Muslim men who were acquitted of helping the 10 Islamist extremists who attacked the city in November 2008.

"They look at people they think are among the criminal classes and single out people from minority communities, especially Muslims."

The sheer number of acquittals raises question marks over the standard and impartiality of the police investigation and prosecution, observers say.

For Javed Anand, general secretary of the campaign group Muslims for a Secular Democracy, the Godhra case reflects a wider anti-Muslim bias in Indian society in areas from housing to education and employment.

"The situation of the Indian Muslim has become like it was to be an African-American in the United States," he told AFP, pointing out that similar action was not taken against those involved in the rioting after the fire.

In 2007, the investigative magazine Tehelka filmed local Hindu activists confessing to making up their statements to police, while other prosecution witnesses have admitted to pressure to give false accounts of the violence.

The chief investigating policeman was also caught on a hidden camera making a series of anti-Muslim remarks, the magazine claims.

AFP: Train fire case highlights India's stagnant courts