Hashimpura

AMN / New Delhi

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has welcomed the judgment of the Delhi High Court regarding the Hashimpura massacre. In a statement issued to the media JIH Secretary General of Muhammad Salim Engineer said: “We welcome the judgment of the Delhi High Court which has sentenced 16 personnel from the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) to imprisonment for the remainder of their life. This judgment overturns the shocking acquittal of the accused in 2015 by the trial court despite sound evidence and documentary proof. However Jamaat also rues the fact that it has taken 31 long years for the nation’s judiciary to dispense justice to what can only be described as an unprovoked and vindictive massacre. ’’.

The Secretary General continued by saying: “it may be recalled that on 22 May 1987 about 45 men from Hashimpura village near Meerut, Uttar Pradesh were taken away in a PAC truck and most of them were shot in cold blood and their bodies thrown in the canal. About 9 years later the UP Crime branch CID filed a charge-sheet against 19 PAC policemen. The evidence against the accused was provided by five men who survived the shooting and escaped after being thrown in the canal.

The Hashimpura massacre is a grim reminder about how a communalized police force carried out the cold blooded murder of its own citizens and exposed the lethargy in our justice-delivery system. Although justice has finally been served, there has been an unacceptable and protracted delay in ensuring that the guilty are punished. It is important for the police forces to be without bias and communal hatred and the criminal justice system to be more efficient. We hope that the government takes up the required steps regarding cleansing the law enforcement agencies of communal bias and sprucing up the judiciary to avoid grievances such as ‘’justice delayed is justice denied’’.