Sena activists acquitted in 1992-93 riots case
Press Trust of India
Friday, May 09, 2008, (Mumbai)
The special riots court on Friday acquitted Shiv Sena MLA Gajanand Kirtikar, Shiv Sena corporator and member of the standing committee of the BMC Ravindra Waikar along with 18 other Shiv Sena activists and supporters, for lack of evidence.
Kirtikar, Waikar and others were accused of instigating violence and being part of an unlawful assembly during the 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai. A case against them was registered in the year 2000 by the Jogeshwari police.
Magistrate R C Bapat Sarkar acquitted the 20 accused due to lack of evidence and after the statement of the investigating police officer failed to support the case of the prosecution.
According to the prosecution, Kirtikar and other Shiv Sena leaders took out a march on December seven, 1992 and allegedly pelted stones outside a mosque in Jogeshwari, a north western suburb in Mumbai.
When the police stopped the march, Kirtikar and Waikar led the supporters to the police station where they allegedly misbehaved with the police officers. The police, instead of registering the offence, immediately made an entry in the station diary about the incidence.
However, the police could not produce the diary before the court reasoning that the diary had been lost in the span of 16 years. Based on this, the court acquitted all the accused due to insufficient evidence against them, advocate Jaiprakash Bagoria appearing for Kirtikar said.
"We have been falsely implicated in this case by the Congress government, who did it to pacify their Muslim voting bank," Waikar said after he was acquitted by the court.
He added that when the special riots court was set up and several riots cases were reopened, not a single case was made against any Congress activist or leader. "We went there only to pacify the crowd but instead we were charged. The Congress tried to gain political mileage out of this," Waikar added.
According to Kirtikar, there was no evidence or witness against them and yet this case was dragged for 16 years only to insult us. "There has been no wrong doing on the part of the Shiv Sena," he asserted.