A citizens’ committee whose members allege that anti-CAA protesters are being framed in Delhi riots cases has called for evidence in connection with the February flare-up in which 53 people were killed.
A month after it was formed, the Citizens Committee on the Delhi Riots of February 2020 last week issued a public notice calling upon people to volunteer “information and material pertaining to the Delhi riots” and send them “in as much detail as possible” to the panel.
“Based on a perusal of this information, the committee may invite persons for further interactions, keeping their identity confidential,” the public notice, circulated on Tuesday, said.
A member of the panel said they would follow procedures that a commission of inquiry does, although their report would not have any legal bearing. The member said the committee would bring to light facts that police might not have looked at or brought to trial.
The committee is headed by retired Supreme Court judge Madan B. Lokur and includes Justices A.P. Shah, former chief justice of the Madras and Delhi high courts and ex-chairman of the Law Commission of India; R.S. Sodhi, a former judge of Delhi High Court; Anjana Prakash, a former judge of Patna High Court; former Union home secretary G.K. Pillai; and Meeran Chadha Borwankar, who retired as director-general of the Bureau of Police Research and Development.
They are part of the Constitutional Conduct Group of retired civil servants, who have spoken out against anti-CAA activists being harassed on the pretext of riots cases, and for an increase in the percentage of paper trail votes counted.
After the committee was announced last month, the Supreme Court had appointed Justice Lokur to study stubble burning around Delhi but stayed its order after the Centre promised an ordinance, which was passed last week to create a new organisation to control pollution in the National Capital Region.
The police had earlier ignored requests for information from a Delhi Minority Commission probe that accused BJP leaders including Union home minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath of inciting the riots in February. Then minority panel chairman Zafarul Islam Khan was recently raided by the NIA for the alleged role of his NGO in funding separatists in Jammu and Kashmir.
No “commission of inquiry” has been instituted for the Delhi riots so far. In Delhi, only the Centre has the power to set up such a commission before whom witnesses can be compelled to depose.
