Hashimpura massacre in India continues to haunt those left behind

Survivors and families of victims vow justice despite acquittal of alleged killers.

New Delhi:  For the last 27 years, Zulfikar Nasir has been haunted by memories of what has been described as the worst case of extrajudicial killing in India’s history.

The wait for justice for what has become known as the Hashimpura massacre has been long and painful for Nasir, one of five survivors of the killings, the motive for which is believed to have been sectarian.

According to the survivors and other witnesses, 47 men — all Muslim — were rounded up by the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) on May 22, 1987 and put in a truck in Hashimpura in Uttar Pradesh state’s Meerut district.

All were later shot while on their way to Delhi and thrown into a nearby canal. Forty-two men died and five survived.

In the aftermath, 19 PAC men were accused of the killings — three have since died.

“There was a curfew in place because of communal clashes that had broken out when the PAC came,” Nasir told ucanews.com.

“They said they had come to search our houses but they took us along with them.”

Nasir, who was just 15 at the time, said the PAC men herded them into a truck and drove away.

“It was only when the truck stopped by a canal that we realized that we were near Delhi,” he said.

“They took three men from the truck first and shot them before I was taken out and shot. The bullet struck me in the armpit and I fell to the ground. They then started firing indiscriminately at the men in the truck until they thought we were all dead and threw our bodies in the canal,” he said.

Nasir and four others managed to swim to safety only to undergo a long and painful legal battle, hoping that justice would be delivered and the culprits brought to book.

However, it appears the wait for justice will drag on after a Delhi court acquitted the policemen on March 21, calling the investigation “scanty, unreliable and faulty”.

The acquittal came as a surprise to the survivors and the families of the victims.

“When I heard the judgment I had never felt so shocked and let down before…. Not even when the incident took place,” Nasir told ucanews.com.

The court, in its 216-page judgment, had accepted the testimonies of the witnesses, he said.

“The testimonies of the witnesses are quite clear, specific, expressive and descriptive. The testimonies of these witnesses are quite consistent with each other and there are no major deviations or contradictions,” the judgment said.

However, citing a lack of evidence, the court said prosecutors could not prove the 16 accused were the actual killers.

Despite also agreeing that the investigation had been shoddy, lawyers representing the survivors and families of the victims expressed disbelief at the acquittal after having pinned their hopes on eyewitness accounts.

There were five survivors of the massacre who told the court what happened that day, and still we are so far away from justice, said Vrinda Grover, a lawyer for one of the survivors.

“What would have happened to the case if there were no survivors? Nonetheless, the PAC has made sure that no evidence was left behind,” she said.

Another lawyer, Rebecca John, told ucanews.com that an appeal would be filed in the next 60 days.

“I view the judgment as a dry recital of facts as though it was a small dispute that happened rather than a massacre of this magnitude. I don’t see the judge showing any kind of understanding of the crime that was committed,” John said.

It is so shocking that the case has taken so long, she said.

“Can anyone visualise that the charge sheet for an incident that happened in 1987 was filed in 1996? The hearing into the case started in 2006 and in 2015 we get slapped with this judgment,” she said, adding that if these crimes are to be stopped in the future then the judicial system has to understand the nature, extent and magnitude of the crime.

“If they don’t understand it, we will continue to get judgments of this kind,” John said.

It’s not only the survivors who are haunted by the events that took place so long ago, but the lives of the families of those killed.

Some families did not even get to retrieve the bodies. The case against the policemen is the only the hope for justice they have.

Haseena, 50, who only goes by one name, lost her husband in the massacre.

“They took him and he never returned. I learned that he had been killed only when one of the survivors returned home a month after the massacre. I never saw his body,” she said.

“I felt deep pain when I heard the court verdict. It killed me, too,” she added.

Anjum, who also goes by one name, lost her father-in-law and brother-in-law in the killings that would eventually also take her husband’s life.

“My husband committed suicide two years back waiting for justice. He could not take it anymore. All the three men in my family are dead,” she said.

Wajahat Habibullah, a senior civil servant in the Indian government at the time of the killings and who had visited the scene of the massacre with the then prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, supports the survivors and the victims’ families.

He also expressed surprise at the verdict.

“Everybody knew how many people were involved in the killings, the truck in which the victims were taken … was identified and still we get this judgment,” he said.

Anjum, and the others are vowing to continue their pursuit of justice.

"We will fight no matter how many more years this takes. This is the sole purpose of our life now. There is nothing worse that could have happened to us."

Source: UCAN