Those hindering justice process in 84 riots still free: Marwah

New Delhi, Nov 2 (UNI) Former Delhi Police Commissioner Ved Marwah has said '' the faultlines in our judicial system have been shown'' by the fact that people who were hindering the process of justice, in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, had still not been punished while those aiding the process of law were still facing harassment.

Talking to a private television channel last night, Mr Marwah, who was asked to conduct an enquiry, immediately after the 84 riots, into the role of the Delhi Police in the chain of events but was then abruptly asked to terminate it, said,''This shows the faultlines in our judicial system.

''I was an official aiding the judicial system in getting victims (of the riots) to justice. But what happened was that many of the officers went to the Delhi High Court.'' Marwah was asked to stop the enquiry after some officers of the Delhi police went to the Delhi High Court with a petition that the enquiry be stopped as Mr Marwah was prejudiced against the police.

''After I received a written order from the then Police Commissioner to conduct an enquiry into the role of the Delhi Police in the 1984 riots, for which I was given three months, I worked day and night, getting all documents from the control room and Commissioner's control room and meeting a large number of witnesses and NGOs.'' ''However, just as I was about the complete the probe and fix responsibility on individual officers, I received another written order from the commissioner asking me to stop the enquiry,'' Mr Marwah told Karan Thapar in the 'Tonight Show' on CNBC.

Mr Marwah revealed that from the documents he had collected in course of the probe, it was clear that the Delhi police was absent from large part of the areas affected by riots, specially in the South, East and New Delhi districts, which were the main affected districts in the riots.

''In these areas, there was no movement of officers. It was not there for days altogether. Infact, the stories given to me by a large number of witnesses was that when sikhs were picked up and burnt, some of them took about an hour to die. This is happening in the Capital city of Delhi and there was no police to rescue them because the police had absented themselves,'' Mr Marwah said.

While stopping short of terming the police absence as deliberate, Mr Marwah said, ''The negligence of the police was certainly there.

However, whether it was malafide, I had still to find out.'' Mr Marwah said a number of officers who were incharge of areas where riots took place were transfered out of Delhi police for some time.

''Later on some of them got promoted and many soon get retire,'' he said.

Asked whether any of these officers got punished, the former police commisioner said,''I am not aware if any of these officers got punished.'' However, he said he was still being targetted by sons of many of these officers.

''First those officers filed a writ petition in the High Court.

Then they filed a civil suit. Then, a few days ago I recieved summons from a Delhi court to appear before it.'' ''This is sheer harrassment because if you look at the substance of these suits any person with common sense will throw it out,'' he added.

UNI