The acquittal of all 16 surviving accused in the 1987 Hashimpura-Maliana massacre of 42 Muslim youths by additional sessions judge Sanjay Jindal in a Delhi court on Saturday last is a miscarriage of justice.

Three of the accused died during the prolonged trial. Communal clashes had broken out in Meerut in the summer of 1987. Instructions had gone from the Union ministry of internal security in the Rajiv Gandhi government to “teach a lesson” to the rioters.

The task was entrusted to the Provincial Armed Constabulary of Uttar Pradesh. On the night of 22 May, personnel of 41st company of the PAC conducted a raid on the Hashimpura-Maliana mohalla and picked up about 60 able-bodied young Muslims from a congregation in front of a mosque, took them to the outskirts of Murad Nagar near the Uppar Ganga Canal, shot them from point-blank range inside the police truck in which they were taken and threw the bodies into the canal.

The UP government from the outset wanted to save the accused from legal proceedings. After all they had only carried out orders from above. The State government kept on telling the courts the accused could not be traced while they were actually serving in their units, getting promotions and even retiring from service with full benefits. There was a conspiracy between the political party in power at the Centre then and the UP government to shield the culprits. “I give them the benefit of the doubt due to insufficient evidence, particularly on the identification of the accused,” said judge Jindal while acquitting them.

After dragging its feet for nine years, the UP government filed a charge-sheet before the chief judicial magistrate in Ghaziabad in 1996. Sixteen of the 19 accused surrendered in court in May 2000, that too only because of a gigantic public uproar. All of them were released on bail.

The other three accused had died of natural causes. The case was transferred to the Tees Hazari court in Delhi in 2002 on orders of the Supreme Court and a special public prosecutor was appointed 15 years after the crime was committed. The Delhi court took another four years to frame charges of murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy against the PAC personnel. The delay was due to the deliberate and culpable failure of the State to produce the accused on time and erasing to the extent possible all evidence.

The washing of the blood-stained truck in which the men were shot dead and plugging of the bullet holes in the firing pointed to culpability. But the court rejected the prosecution evidence saying it had not been able to make an “unbreakable chain” of circumstances in the case.

The inability of the five who survived the carnage inside the truck and escaped with gunshot injuries to identify the helmet-wearing accused clinched the issue in their favour. Justice for the victims’ families can still triumph if the pending case in the Delhi High Court against the Union minister considered responsible for the massacre is disposed of expeditiously.