June 3, 2012
Jyeshtha Shukla 14, Kaliyug Varsha 5114

New Delhi : Janata Party president  has accused Home Minister P. Chidambaram of having a hand in the shooting of 41 Muslim youth by the Police Armed Constabulary personnel during the communal riots in Meerut's Hashimpura in 1987. Swamy said he was going to file an application in the court to expand the scope of the inquiry to interrogate Chidambaram, who was then Minister of State for Internal Security.

"Not as an accused at the moment, but I am entering the matter with new material. He (Chidambaram) will definitely be made an accused. If you ask me, personally, I will say he is an accused," said Swamy. However, he said he would file the application on a later date.

Twenty-five years after the incident took place on 22 May 1987, the case is still going on at the Tees Hazari and the Ghaziabad Sessions Courts and the next date of hearing is 4 June.

"The Muslim youth, aged between 15-35 years, were picked up from Hashimpura by UP PAC (Provincial Armed Constabulary) personnel and taken by truck to Ganga Canal near Muradnagar, 20 km away, ordered to get off the truck one by one and shot. The bodies were thrown into the canal. But obviously some were not shot, but they feigned death," said Swamy. Some of these youth later turned witnesses to the cold-blooded killing.

Swamy said Chidambaram had visited Meerut during the communal tensions and even conducted an aerial survey of the area on 14 May 1987: "He (Chidambaram) admitted to this (aerial survey) in Parliament. On 20 May 1987, he took a meeting with the PAC people and the Chief Minister. He never admitted to this meeting. The then MP from the area, Mohsina Kidwai, was never called for the meeting."

Swamy said he has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that a special probe should be instituted to investigate Chidambaram's role in the incident that became infamous as the Hashimpura massacre, failing which he would approach the International Court of Justice under Article 17 of the Rome Statutes.

Swamy had fasted unto death in August 1987, demanding an inquiry into the massacre by a Central agency. A year later, he took out a padayatra from Meerut to Lucknow demanding a probe in the killing.

Source : The Sunday Guardian