Cold recall of an old case

THE SULEMAN USMAN BAKERY RAID, WHICH LEFT 8 UNARMED MUSLIMS DEAD, TOOK PLACE ON JANUARY 9, 1993, WHEN THE POSTBABRI MASJID RIOTS WERE ON IN THE CITY

MUMBAI: After additional public prosecutor Ratnavali Patil told the court that the police officer in charge of the Suleman Usman Bakery raid was not cooperating, additional sessions judge AA Kulkarni passed an order that the court will issue a letter to the Mumbai police commissioner to appoint a “compatible officer to secure witnesses.”

This is not the first time the court has ordered senior police officers to cooperate. In 2019, DCP Special Task Force (STF) Rajiv Jain was summoned and told to ensure that all papers pertaining to the case, which had been filed by the STF, be given to the APP.

The Suleman Usman Bakery raid, led by then Joint Commissioner Ram Dev Tyagi, which left 8 unarmed Muslims dead, took place on January 9, 1993, when the post-Babri Masjid riots were on.

However, the case against the policemen who conducted the raid was filed only in 2001. In 1998, the B N Srikrishna Commission of Inquiry Report recommended strict action against Tyagi and two of his lieutenants. But it was only after the Supreme Court, hearing a petition urging that the Commission Report be implemented, demanded to know what action had been taken against Tyagi, that an FIR was filed in 2001. Tyagi and 8 others were discharged in 2003, and the discharge was upheld in 2011 by the Supreme Court.

Since then, the case against the remaining nine policemen has been meandering in various courts and two of the accused have died.

Evidence started being recorded on February 2, 2019, but frequent adjournments were asked for by both the APP, due to unavilability of documents, as well as by the defence.

However, hearings came to a standstill between March 2020 and October 2021, due to the pandemic and lockdown.

By the time the hearings resumed, senior defence advocate Shrikant Shivade was gravely ill and passed away in Janaury 2022. The court too remained vacant for some months, with regular hearings resuming only in July under a new judge.

So far, the prosecution has produced 14 witnesses before the court. The defence insists that they be given a schedule of witnesses in advance. However, tracing the witnesses is proving difficult.

After the raid, the workers of the bakery and staff of the adjacent madarsa returned to their villages, and many of them did not return. Tracing them would entail a trip to UP’s Ambedkar Nagar.

Of the 14 who have so far testified, only three were present during the raid. Two witnesses: the owner of the bakery and a panch, turned hostile.

As for the police, most of the men connected with the case have retired, including the Investigating Officer and the complainant. The IO, Prahlad Sonawane, is currently said to be in Dubai. In 2016, when efforts were being made to track him, he was said to be in the US, but he suddenly turned up just before an arrest warrant was to be issued against him.