By IANS
Patna : Eighteen years after the Bhagalpur riots in which over 1,000 people were killed, the Bihar government is set to take action against the police and civil officials who had been indicted for their role in the riots.
After it reopened 28 cases related to the 1989 communal riots, the government has now decided to re-work cases against the guilty police and civil officials.
“The government will soon initiate proceedings to reopen cases related to the officials indicted for their role in the Bhagalpur riots,” an official in the state home department said Tuesday.
After Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said Monday the state government will take appropriate action against the indicted officials, dusty files on them were waiting to be reopened for fresh investigation.
Till date no action has been taken against indicted 14 officials, including over half a dozen Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, besides a number of state government officials, mostly policemen.
According to officials, a two-member inquiry commission comprising Ram Chandra Prasad Sinha and Shamsul Hasan, both retired judges of the Patna High Court, which submitted its report in June 1995, found the 14 officers guilty, but no action was taken against them during the previous Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) governments led by Lalu Prasad and later by his wife Rabri Devi.
Nitish Kumar had said his ministry would initiate action against these officials on the basis of the report prepared by the last probe panel constituted by the previous RJD government.
“The government will reopen cases against the indicted officials,” he said.
Last year, Nitish Kumar instituted a fresh probe to reinvestigate the riots cases that were closed by the police for lack of evidence. His decision kindled hopes of many a victim whose were despairing for justice.
The commission, headed by Justice (retd) N.N. Singh, submitted an interim report a few months ago this year and was preparing its final report.
Over 1,000 people, a majority of them Muslims, were killed in the month-long riots in Bhagalpur city in October 1989.
Last week, a Bhagalpur court convicted the lone accused in the killing of a shop owner in the first of the 28 cases reopened for trial.
The court found Kameshwar Yadav, guilty under Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of the Arms Act.
The police had in the past closed the case against Yadav, citing lack of evidence. A case had been lodged against him at the Tatrapur police station in 1990.