‘Convicts should appeal in apex court’

LUCKNOW: After the Delhi high court convicted 16 former Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel for the massacre of Muslims in Hashimpura near Meerut district in 1987, some BJP leaders said convicts should appeal against the verdict in the apex court.

The state’s SC/ST Commission chairman Brij Lal, who is also a BJP leader, said, “A lower court had held them not guilty. Today a higher court has found them guilty. But there is still one more recourse left and I am sure they will get justice in the apex court.”

The Congress was in power in UP and at the Centre when the massacre happened.

As images from Hashimpura, where families of victims were seen blaming the PAC for killing their relatives in cold blood circulated on news channels, Lal, a former director general of police, said he disagreed with the vilification of the force as ‘anti-Muslim.’

“As far as this specific issue is concerned, I hope these PAC men, would surely move the Supreme Court. But, yes, the vilification of the PAC as anti-Muslim has been wholly wrong. I have been DG PAC and have commanded PAC battalions. The anti-Muslim image of PAC is due to some political parties willing to do anything for narrow interest,” he said.

Lal said he was the SSP of Meerut in 1991 and knew the circumstances in which the PAC had to operate.

“The force has a glorious history. When there was no CRPF and BSF, the same PAC used to man the borders too. It fought the Bangladesh war and also played a role in unification of India,” Lal said.

Former UP BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai, a four-time former MLA from Meerut, said, “First, a court held the cops not guilty and now a court held them guilty. There must be an appeal (against the HC decision) in the Supreme Court and their side should be well represented.”

Fateh Bahadur, 48, a BJP lawmaker, was 17 when the controversial killings of 1987 happened. His father Vir Bahadur Singh was the UP chief minister at the time.

“I was too young then but yes, I remember hearing about it (the massacre of Muslims). Can’t comment on the court decision but there was one thing about my father. He would brook no injustice and feared none,” he said. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “There was another thing about my father. In his time, the police were always free to go after the guilty.” He didn’t elaborate.