Jat quota violence: No major breakthrough, reveals report
SIT FINDINGS Probe team tells court victims and complainants were not forthcoming
CHANDIGARH: A report submitted by the special investigation team (SIT) constituted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to review probe in 1,105 FIRS registered during violence of February 2016 in Rohtak on Tuesday, revealed that no major breakthrough has been made by police in the investigation of these FIRS in the last three years.
The SIT, headed by Hisar Range inspector general of police (IGP) Amitabh Singh Dhillon, have scrutinised 600 cases registered so far. The SIT report said photographs of suspects in many cases were uploaded on the Haryana Police website, but till now no person has come forward to identify them. Public too is not coming forward to give information about these cases, the report said, and added that media was approached to provide footage and help police in investigation, but it did not get any response.
The SIT said victims and complainants were not forthcoming and only 326 victims or complaints recorded their statements before magistrates while 185 statements were recorded by police.
Thirty eight cases of theft of electronic items were reported in Rohtak and details of the same were crucial as these items leave digital footprints, but victims only came forward in two cases, the SIT told the court. It added that complainants were not able to give details of bills and in some cases not even able to provide details of shops from where they had bought these items. Some of the cases might be for enhancement of compensation, the SIT said. The SIT said call records of 958 phone users active at the time of incident in Rohtak were scanned, but the exercise did not prove fruitful. The team added that it was finding it difficult to cross-check claims of users since the incident took place three years back. The report revealed that even as ₹2 lakh was announced as reward for any lead in three cases of murder, no one
has come forward yet.
THE SCRUTINY
The SIT was constituted on December 4, 2017 to scrutinise 1,105 FIRS, including 921 cases in which untraced reports were prepared, but not filed, and 184 cases, which were still under investigation. A total of 2,105 FIRS, including 1,212 in Rohtak, were registered by Haryana, after February 2016 Jat quota violence in which at least 30 persons were killed and damage worth thousands of crores was witnessed to public and private properties during the week-long violent protests.
The SIT divided 1,105 FIRS in four teams, headed by Sp-level officials, have scrutinised 600 cases registered so far. In all, 282 cases were given to the team stationed in Hisar, 250 cases to the team stationed in Hansi, 377 cases to Bhiwani team and 288 cases to Sirsa team. The four teams have examined 150 cases each so far.
The scrutiny was ordered after amicus curaie in the case, Anupam Gupta, had questioned the state before the HC in 2017 for “half-heartedly” approach in investigation as it had come to light that in 90% cases, untraced reports were prepared by police.
The hearing was deferred on Tuesday for February as Gupta told court that he needed time to examine reports submitted.