Hashimpura: Where the Police Killed with Impunity and the Congress Governments Watched

NEW DELHI: On the night of 22 May 1987 a platoon of Uttar Pradesh’s dreaded Police Armed Constabulary rounded up 42 Muslim men in the Hashimpura Mohalla of Meerut city, took them away, shot them dead and dumped their bodies into the waters of the Hindon River Canal. On March 21,2015 in a travesty of justice a Delhi sessions court acquitted the 16 police personnel charged for the murder.

The court said that the prosecution has not been able to establish the identity of the suspected policemen. Rehabilitation of victims in the case was referred to legal services authority. Three or four men who had survived the massacre, lived to tell the tale, filed the FIRs and pursued the case over the long arduous years in the hope that justice would be done.

The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties had set up a committee at the time to investigate the communal violence in Meerut, in the wake of which this massacre took place. The team was led by retired Justice Rajinder Sachar. The Citizen is reproducing excerpts from the report to remind readers of what transpired in those fateful days, when Meerut was kept burning under the watch of the Congress government under Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and little or no intervention by the centre then under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

(The PUCL committee comprised the then President of PUCL (Justice) Rajindar Sachar (Retd), Shri Inder Kumar Gujral, Prof A M Khusro, Prof Dalip Swamy, and Prof K C Gupta.)

The scene of action on 18th May was the Hashimpura locality and the nearby Imliyan mosque, where Ansari Muslims belonging to the weavers community live. At about 9 p.m. two kiosks (small wooden shops) situated at Suraj Kund Road were put to fire by some miscreants. Of these two kiosks, one was owned and run by a Hindu manufacturing shuttle cocks and the other owned by a Hindu and run by a Muslim manufacturing carrom-boards. Thereafter electricity suddenly went off. A mob began to form. After about one hour at 10 p.m. on the Hapur Road, opposite to Imliyan Mosque, a shop, Lakshmi Confectioner, was looted and burnt down and one of its proprietors, Kulbhushan, was done to death.

The police tried to nail the suspected culprits and went to Hashimpura and Imliyan for making arrests. It was after namaaz time, during the month of Ramzaan. Police action was strongly resisted by the inmates. While the police was retreating a Jawaan dropped his rifle (some say the rifle was snatched). Soon after the midnight police reinforcement arrived, they announced that the people should get out of their houses otherwise there would be firing. More than 3000 people of Hashimpura and Imliyan came out. Now the electricity was restored and the rifle which was dropped was found outside a house. The police entered that house and shot dead two brothers inside.

A police jeep was parked near Imliyan. A police officer wanted to drive away in the jeep with some arrested persons. The women assembled there resisted, but the jeep drove off killing a girl. There was a great commotion and the mob naturally became unruly and police opened fire killing several persons. According to the DM 130 persons were arrested between midnight and 2 a.m. Curfew was clamped.

It is at this stage that something very unfortunate happened. There appears to be no doubt that some mischief makers got control of the loudspeaker on the mosque and started exhorting people to gather together and to save Islam. We were told this by various reliable people, both Hindus and Muslims, and we have no manner of doubt, that either out of panic or because of the mischievous call given to the Muslims, people collected together in the street. The result of this exhortation was not unexpected. A carnage followed.

The mob fury started after 3 A.M. They started burning, looting, and killing Hindus at Hapur Road, Golekuan, Pilokheri, Lakhipura, and Shyam Nagar. Hapur Road was blocked by big wooden logs. Several vehicles along with their occupants were set to fire. Shops and a petrol pump and many other establishments of Hindus were looted and burnt.

One of the unfortunate incidents was the burning alive of Dr Prabhat, who was, ironically going out to attend a call of a Muslim patient. His car was stopped and the mob in its senseless fury burnt him along with the car. This is doubly unfortunate because Shri Har Pal Singh, father of the deceased, even much later, continues to subscribe to his non-communal approach and was responsible for saving a few Muslim lives when Hindu mobs went on a rampage subsequently.

Subhash Nagar, which is next to Hashimpura, was another area which was the scene of shooting on the early hours on 19th May. The version given to us was that in the early hours there was slogan shouting from adjacent area from Hashimpura. Naturally a large number of people went up to their roofs curious to know what was happening. Evidently there was mutual stone throwing from Subhash Nagar and Hashimpura area. Gun shots were fired from Hashimpura area and one Sushil Tyagi and two others, who were standing on the roof in the Subhash Nagar area were killed on the spot. Though the matter was immediately reported to the police but none came to the spot.

We met Mr Tyagi, father of deceased Sushil Tyagi, who though, naturally, very upset on the death of his son, nevertheless told us proudly and with restraint that he had taken the body to the village Ahmadshahpur Padra and had stayed there for 3 days to make sure that no untoward incident took place as a result of the death of his son.

In the afternoon of 19th the Hindu mob under the benign protection of the PAC began to retaliate. They started burning and destroying Muslim houses and shops on Hapur Road, the Mawana bus stand, stadium, Shastri Nagar, and Miyan Mohammed Nagar. In Mohammed Nagar 225 houses of the total of 354 were gutted. The residents, mostly poor Muslims like rickshaw-puller, etc., narrated the event with a cold helplessness. They accused the PAC of clear complicity and direct involvement in destruction. The PAC allegedly began firing at 2 p.m. and then started looting and burning the houses. Many persons were burnt alive and the remains of their houses could still be seen when this team visited the area. The D.M. pointed out that 130 families were compensated at the rate of Rs 15,000/- each.

In Shastri Nagar several Muslim houses that were strewn between Hindu houses were burnt by the mob which came from other localities. The houses of an income-tax official, a chief engineer, an executive engineer, a noted Urdu poet, and a rich business man who had recently migrated from outside were burnt and looted.

One of the most shameful chapters of human callousness was enacted in Hashimpura area. It would appear by then that sufficient contingents of police and PAC had been inducted into Meerut. It was not clear but it seems that some decision was taken to really spread terror in Hashimpura area. Pursuant to this on May 22 Hashimpura was surrounded by the PAC. The PAC then forced all residents out of their houses to the main Road. Then a house to house search was conducted. The residents complained that several houses were looted by the PAC.

All residents of Hashimpura were lined up on the main road segregated, and one person in Burkha identified 42 young men, who were asked to board a police lorry. Another group of 324 were arrested and taken by other police vehicles.

What the police did in Hashimpura is something which can never be lived down and the shame of this will continue to haunt any civilised Government. We talked to old persons whose sons and grand-sons were taken away by the police. We met young women whose husbands were taken away and later on they were either missing or their dead bodies were found. The way the residents of Hashimpura were treated was shameful. We were told that hundreds of people were taken out from the locality and asked to sit on the road. One army person asked people over 50 years and less than 10-12 years to get on one side and all the others were dumped into waiting trucks. We were told by one Ahmed, who had got away on the excuse that he had his MA examination that morning, and that 3 of his colleagues, namely, Kamaludin S/o Jamaludin, Sarajudin S/o Sabarudin, Nasim S/o Nasim Ahmed, had been taken away on the trucks. These three had not come back thereafter and the father Jamaludin corroborated this version.

Out of 42 only 6 persons are traceable, others have just disappeared. There is no record of these persons with the police. Abdu Bhai the grand father of Zulfikar told that Arif and Karimuddin were also with his grandson. They were arrested together and taken in a truck to Muradnagar and when the truck reached a canal Zulfikar saw Karimuddin being shot by the PAC and thrown in the canal. More than 20 bodies have in fact been found floating in the Ganga Canal.

The other group of 324 persons was taken to the civil lines Police Station, where they were beaten. After keeping them for a night they were shifted to Meerut jail, where their injuries were noted down. Subsequently other criminal prisoners were provoked to beat them up. Some were shifted to Fatehgarh jail, where 5 persons died inside the jail. Abdul Rashid and Nasirudin, who remained in Fatehgarh jail for 21 days, narrated the inhuman treatment meted out to their group in the jail. They were mercilessly beaten; five of them died inside the jail. The DM confirmed the deaths inside jail and pointed out that a CID enquiry was instituted, though he pleaded that it was outside his jurisdiction.

Another gory incident related to village of Maliana. The PAC picket is accused of having fired indiscrimi¬nately and killed 2 dozen people and grim destruc¬tion of property also took place. The Maliana incident has left a deep scar as the allegation was that the police systematically killed Muslims without any provocation. It is a matter of regret that though judicial enquiry is ordered, its findings have still not seen the light of the day. This incident continues to act as a constant source of bitterness between the two communities. Unfortunately though PAC is responsible for this carnage, Hindus get the blame because Muslims believe that this was done because PAC is a Hindu police and they acted in a communal way and not as a law and order force.

In all localities and almost all persons whom we contacted told that when approached the police did not respond. The incidents of killings and injuries in Subhash Nagar, factory burning in Pilokhari, murders on Hapur Road were all reported, but the police reported that they did not have enough manpower. No incident of death was investigated even after a month. The DM main¬tained that the outburst was too high to be attended to individually. About the 5 deaths in jail the DM gave us two versions. One, the prisoners were attacked by a crowd collected at the gate, two that the persons were attacked inside the jail. He also maintained that there was no obstruction to lodging FIRs. Postmortem of 5 bodies were done but the bodies were not handed over to the relatives. An enquiry by the CID was ordered to investigate the case.

The DM also pointed out that from 19th to 21st May there were 2 to 5 companies of PAC, which were inadequate to control the riots. On 22nd May he received 10-12 companies from outside. It was then possible to nab the culprits in Hashimpura.

Spread of rumours also led to great deal of tension. In official releases expression was given that many of the Pakistanis had entered Meerut illegally. We confronted the DM with this news who told us that 7 persons arrested on 25th May from Nougaja Mohalla, only 2 persons were from Pakistan. These two had valid visa and were in Meerut to meet their relatives. They were released because there was no justification to arrest them. Somehow the news was allowed to be spread that Pakistanis had entered without visa, thus adding to the false suggestion as if there was a conspiracy behind this communal riot. This version was totally uncalled for and we feel that the district administration must exercise greater restraint in the type of news it passes on to the people.

How much suspicion had been aroused between the two communities became clear when people complained to us that food which was brought from outside Meerut was not allowed to be distributed by the administration. We checked up with administration (DM) who accepted that food which had been brought by some organisations from Delhi was not allowed to be distributed. According to him, first, the food was being distributed community-wise and, secondly, rumours had been set afloat that the food which was being distributed was poison and the communities may be fed on this food. Of course, he conceded that none of the food was found in any way poisoned but so much was the misunderstanding that the administration did not allow voluntary agencies to distribute food even though when many voluntary agencies both of muslims and Hindus wanted to distribute relief without in any manner restricting it to any particular community. We are sorry that the administration should have taken this attitude because common relief work would have eased the tension. The delegation visited various areas and localities and talked to many persons including relatives of the missing and the dead. We talked to many people in Hashimpura.

They were in great panic and had horrible tales of police cruelty to tell. All of them stated that they had been beaten by police. We were given a list of 41 persons who were said to have been carried away by the police on 22nd May 1987 from Hashimpura but whose whereabouts were not known. A copy of the list, which was supposed to have been given to the Commissioner for Relief, was given to us. We were also given a list of 5 persons who were taken away by the police from Hashimpura and were said to have died in police custody when they were taken to Fatehgarh jail. Their death was confirmed by the DM Meerut who, however, pleaded that the area was outside his jurisdiction. One of our members, Mr Rajindar Sachar, wrote to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of UP mentioning these facts as mentioned above. A copy of the letter forms Annexure to this report.

Another incident of the total inaction and the callousness of the administration was brought to our notice when we visited Subhash Nagar. On the night of 19th firing was stated to have taken place from some house in Hashimpura and some persons who were standing on the roof of a house of Subhash Nagar were killed. We visited the place of occurrence and it does seem that firing must have taken place from the Hashimpura side because that was the only roof from which the bullet could have traveled and hit the persons who were on the top of the house. We were told by the President of Subhash Nagar Association that they had telephoned the police and other District officers asking for their help but no one from the police visited the area even by the time when we visited them. This is extremely deplorable considering that information about the cognizance of offence had been given and yet the police had not taken the elementary step of investigation which they were duty bound to do under law. That 3 people undoubtedly died in Subhash Nagar due to bullet injury is uncontroverted but the response of the administration was totally callous. Days after the incident not even a sub-inspector of police had visited the sites to record statements and find out what exactly happened. No amount of general deterioration in the situation in Meerut could be any explanation for this attitude. Conditions on that night were not so bad that the police could not have visited the scene of deaths. As a matter of fact it would appear that the whole of the administra¬tion was waiting for additional re-enforcement of police and PAC to arrive before taking any action.

But the use they made of this is something shocking. When the additional re-enforcement arrived they went out with recklessness and with a communal slant, with the result that the Muslim areas were made the special target of attack by the police (it is probably correct that a mob did come out on 19th early hours on the Hapur Road and burnt a petrol pump, and a timber godown belonging to Hindus). But, as mentioned above, the coming out of the mob on the street was a panic reaction to the police brutality in searching and killings of some persons when they went to arrest some people in Imliyan Mohalla in early morning. Thereafter from 22nd when the re-enforcement of PAC and army arrived it was a one sided communal attack against the Muslim area and Muslim individuals.