10 Dalit lives and an inquiry

10 Dalit lives and an inquiry

Can a departmental inquiry against a police sub-inspector who has been indicted by a commission of inquiry headed by a sitting High Court judge take more than six months? What's the value of a departmental inquiry whose outcome depends on who's in power? Do 10 Dalit lives translate into anything other than votes for politicians?

These questions come to mind on the third `anniversay' of the Ramabai Nagar firing which took place in Mumbai on July 11, `97. The then Sena-BJP government, rattled by the public outcry at the shooting down of 10 Dalits within minutes of their protesting the desecration of an Ambedkar statue, appointed the Justic S.D. Gundewar Commission of Inquiry. Its report was tabled in June `98.

Justice Gundewar found the firing unjustified. The police had projected the firing as necessary because, they alleged, the angry mob had begun to set fire to an oil tanker parked nearby. A resident of one of the buildings had video-filmed the burning tanker. Justice Gundewar rejected the ``tanker theory'' as false, and found the ``film'' to be edited and bogus.

Unlike the Srikrishna Commission report, the Sena-BJP government accepted Justice Gundewar's report. But no steps were taken to remove from service Police Sub-Inspector M.Y. Kadam who ordered the firing, about whom the Commission had said: ``The police did not take any steps to deal with the crowd and its dispersal at the place of firing and straightway opened fire for which PSI M.Y. Kadam is responsible. The decision to open fire was exclusively that of PSI Kadam... The firing was without warning, unjustified, unwarranted and indiscriminate... Police Sub-Inspector Kadam's lapses are so glaring and fatal that they can hardly be accepted... I do not think that such an officer should continue in public service.''

Two years later, PSI Kadam continues to be in service. It's not even as though the ``anti-minority, anti-Dalit'' Sena-BJP combine is bent on shielding him. Today, the second-most powerful politician in Maharashtra is the man who was in the forefront of protests against the Ramabai Nagar firing. Indeed, the Sena had even accused Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal of having engineered the desecration, a charge they could not prove.

Why then is it so difficult for Bhujbal to act upon Justice Gundewar's finding against a mere sub-inspector?

The reason being given is that a departmental inquiry held soon after the incident had exonerated Kadam. Now this government has initiated another departmental inquiry, which will, in all probability, indict him.

Advocate Sangharaj Rupawate, who appeared for one of the victims before the Commission, argues that there's enough evidence in the report for the government to file charges against Kadam under Sec 302 IPC and under the Prevention of Atrocities to Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes Act. If the government does not do so, any organisation representing the families of the victims can file a complaint against him in a magistrate's court, adds Vijay Pradhan, senior counsel for the Commission. Alternately, they could go to the concerned police station and lodge a formal complaint of murder against Kadam. ``Unlike the Muslims, the Dalits are a very organised community,'' points out Pradhan, who was earlier additional senior counsel for the Srikrishna Commission. ``There will be no problem getting witnesses to testify in court.''

The aftermath of police atrocities all over the country has shown that unless an organisation or a committed individual takes it up as a mission, the guilty are never pursued, let alone punished. In the Ramabai Nagar incident, an action committee was formed which persuaded terrified residents to testify. Shyam Gaekwad, active in that committee, has urged this government to initiate a number of steps to complete the process begun by the Commission: set up an inquiry to go into who was responsible for the desecration, the ``tanker theory'' and the ``video film''; set aside the three chargesheets which were then filed on the desecration; on the circumstances leading to the firing and on the public protest that erupted, all of which he says, were based on the theory that the mob was violent. ``We've told both Bhujbal and Ramdas Athavle to use the Gundewar Commission Report as evidence to institute fresh inquiries.''

Dalit leader Ramdas Athavle, now a partner in the ruling coalition, was manhandled by residents of Ramabai Nagar on his first visit there after the incident, and his party, the Republican Party of India, boycotted the Gundewar Commission. But on July 11, the RPI was very much in evidence at the annual ritual enacted at Ramabai Nagar on that day, and its leaders now swear by the report. One of them publicly admitted that no government takes action unless pressurised to do so. ``There must be a people's movement on this issue, I don't see any evidence of it.''

Significantly, almost the same answer was given at another public meeting by Congress minister Husain Dalwai when he was asked why this government was not implementing the Srikrishna Commission report, though its implementation was part of the Congress party's manifesto.

``These leaders made it to power riding on the people's movement on these issues,'' laughs Professor Suresh Mane. ``The people regarded them as `our people' and expected them to get these reports implemented. Now they have realised that these leaders are useless, and the frustration that has set in makes it difficult to mobilise them into a mass movement yet again.''

Does it take a people's movement to get a sub-inspector punished? But then, it's not a question of one sub-inspector. Gaekwad and Rupawate allege that to justify the police firing, the ``tanker theory'' was propounded by senior police officials, be it then police commissioner Subash Malhotra, then additional Commissioner of Police T.K. Choudhury or DCP Sanjay Barve and Investigating Officer Rane.

``If the report is read in toto,'' says Rupawate, ``it becomes clear that two completely different versions were presented before the Commission of the incident, the police version and the people's version. The Commission then held that the people's version is the correct one. But this government has promoted the officers who propounded the false version.''

Be it Mumbai's former police commissioner R.D. Tyagi, indicted by Justice Srikrishna, or PSI Kadam, found unfit for public service by Justice Gudewar, the police seem to know how to get away with murder, literally.