The apex court Wednesday said District Superintendent of Police and Inspector General of Police and all others entrusted with the task of operating the law must not do anything which allows its misuse and abuse and ensure that no innocent person has the feeling of sufferance only because his religion.
“The SP and IGP and all others entrusted with the task of operating the law must not do anything that allows its misuse and abuse and ensure that no innocent person has the feeling of sufferance only because ‘My name is Khan but I am not a terrorist’,” said a Bench of Justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad.
A bench of justices made the observation while acquitting 11 persons convicted for allegedly planning to create communal violence during the Lord Jaganath Puri Yatra at Ahmedabad in Gujarat in 1994.
The bench acquitted the 11 allowing their appeals against an anti-terror court judgement, which had convicted them on terror charges and had sentenced them to five years in jail each under the now-repealed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act, TADA and various other provisions of the IPC.