NEW DELHI: Terming the police
investigation as "inefficient" and "inadequate" in a
case pertaining to 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Delhi
High Court today slammed the city police for
implicating five "innocent" men and allowing the real
culprits to flee.
"Serious crimes were committed in the wake of riot
but, inadequate and insufficient investigations have
enabled the actual perpetrators of the crimes to slip
through the net of justice," noted a Division Bench of
Justice B D Ahmed and Justice V B Gupta in a judgement
and upheld the trial court's order acquitting the five
accused.
"This is a classic example of state roping in innocent
persons to solve a riot case...the arrest of
respondents (accused persons) were made in a
premeditate and designed manner aimed only at working
out the present case with scant regard for actual
culpability or involvement of arrested persons," the
Bench said.
The court acquitted Ravinder Singh, Daya Shankar,
Raghbir Singh, Ram Avtar and Ramesh, who were accused
of looting the Coca-Cola factory at Okhla on
November1, 1984.
The riots followed the assassination of the then Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh security guards at
her resident. Delhi was among the worst affected
places in the nation-wide riots.
