By Abdul Bari Masoud

New Delhi: Reiterating the demand to sack Union Home Minister Amit Shah , Congress party’s ‘Fact-Finding Committee’ on the Delhi riots on Monday strongly pitched for an independent judicial inquiry headed by a sitting Judge of the High Court/Supreme Court into the violence that erupted in North East Delhi between February 23 to 27 which left 54 people dead and over 400 injured.

Submitting its report to the party president Sonia Gandhi, the committee also demanded registering of FIR against ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including union minister Anurag Thakur, MP Pravesh Verma, Kapil Mishra and MLA Abhay Verma and their immediate arrest.

Apart from these, it also recommended to set up peace committees with the help of public representatives especially the Delhi Government and to launch the healing process.

The fact-finding committee comprising Mukul Wasnik, Shaktisinh Gohil, Kumari Selja, Tariq Anwar and Sushmita Dev released its report at the Party headquarters here with 13-point charter of demand for restoring normalcy in the violence-hit areas and ensures justice to the victims of North East Delhi.

Addressing the media, former union minister Mukul Wasnik said party president Sonia Gandhi has formed the committee to assess on the ground on what happened, what triggered the violence, the extent of the violence.

The violence was pre-planned and it was not some spontaneous violence with the complicity of BJP, he added.

“In our three or four days visit during which Rahul Gandhi also visited with Members of Parliament and Members of the Committee. It is crystal clear this was not some spontaneous violence that triggered between the two common people entering into some sort of altercation. There was provocation.”

“There is ample evidence out there. Who are the people, who provoked this violence on the afternoon of 23rd February? It is amply clear how the Delhi Police totally failed to prevent or contain what followed in the afternoon 23rd February”, he further said.

The senior congress leader also said that there are sufficient grounds for the dismissal of Home Minister as the failure of the intelligence, acts and omissions of the Delhi police and the overall failure of the home ministry officials in failing to prevent the violence.

“In light of the scale of violence and consequential loss of life and property the committee strongly demands the resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah”.

Echoing similar demand, another member of the committee, Shaktisinh Gohil said thousands of phone calls went to 100 Number, there was no response for hours from the police and the Home Minister was solely responsible for this.

If he values of the life of the people of Delhi, then he must step down because there can be no other remedy – the only way that we can do justice is for the Home Minister to step down, Gohil said.

For ensuring impartial inquiry of the violence, he said the committee strongly recommended a high–level judicial probe as police set up SITs cannot do it.

“There is a plethora of evidence whether it has been written by my friends in the media, by various NGOs, by various videos which is circulated since the Delhi riots happened, that there is absolutely every reason to believe that Delhi Police will not – I repeat Delhi Police will not be in a position to have an objective enquiry and any objective arrest”.

The committee said the Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal did absolutely nothing to prevent the riots.

We are absolutely appalled at the way the Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal Ji who came with a huge mandate in the name of governance simply washed his hands off. He silently sat on his twitter handle, and watched the violence spread across North East Delhi. It is absolutely a shame for him who did absolutely nothing.

In response to a question, Gohil quipped there was a pattern where BJP engineered communal violence, first they (BJP) made fake calls for spreading romours, then any outside leader come to incite the people and he disappeared after riots breaks out, and police was asked to take no action, after the riots break out on large scale, they perpetuate atrocities in selected localities, identification of houses and shops and target a particular shop in cluster of 50 shops.” Gohil hails from Gujarat and knows how the BJP engineers riots.

Expressing condolences to the bereaved families of people and officials who lost their lives in Delhi violence, Wasnik said: “While 690 FIRs have been registered for the riots on one side, till today, no FIR has been registered against Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra, and Parvesh Verma. What does that mean? Does Government want peace and harmony in Delhi or not?”

Former union minister and the committee member Tariq Anwar also stressed the need of forming peace committees for restoring normalcy in the affected areas.

Wasnik said Congress would raise the Delhi violence matter in the ongoing budget session of parliament which is expected to be discussed on Wednesday.

The Congress team visited affected areas and hospitals between 28th of February and 4th March, 2020 and made 13 demands in its report including:

1-Since the people have expressed their apprehensions about the two SIT’s limited mandates as well as BJP complicity, the Committee urges that a Judicial Enquiry be conducted with a sitting Judge of the High Court/Supreme Court to ensure impartial enquiry.

2-Both the State and Union Government identify the responsible bureaucrats and police officers and ensure they face due procedure for dereliction of their duties; and charge them for utter incompetence and inefficiency in handling the situation.

3-State and Union Governments take additional steps to preserve and secure the footages from all the CCTV cameras in all the affected areas.

4-The Committee recommends that the state government immediately conduct a comprehensive damage assessment in the affected areas, and provide compensation commensurate with the loss of life and property. It also recommends an independent monitoring system be established, to monitor government operations in affected areas and to ensure the rights of the affected families to adequate protection, compensation, relief and rehabilitation

5-State government should restore certificates of students which have been destroyed during the riots, take sufficient measures to support students for their examinations and ensure they do not lose the entire academic year.

6-The Committee advises that the Delhi government ensure that interest free loans are extended to all the owners of commercial establishments and those in the informal sector (including autorickshaw/rickshaw/e-rickshaw drivers, street vendors etc;) over and above the compensation for their losses.

7-The committee also recommends that in order to quicken the healing process of the affected families specially women and children, the state government support and facilitate NGOs involved in grief and trauma counselling to setup adequate number of centres.