On Saturday a Meerut court acquitted 39 accused in the communal riots that took place in Maliana, which resulted in 72 Muslims killed and hundreds of others injured.
Almost, 36 years since the killing of the innocent Muslims during the riots which broke out on May 22nd 1987.
The protests had erupted in various parts of the country after the Rajiv Gandhi government orderd the opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid, allowing Hindu prayers inside.
An estimated 350 people died in these riots in and around Maliana. Yaqub Ali, on whose complaint the sole FIR was lodged in the incident, had filed a case against 93 people.
In the report, the plaintiff had written that while setting fire, all the people gathered together and attacked with the intention of murder. We were mercilessly beaten up and had it not been a generous Sub-Inspector, we would have been killed,” he alleged.
He said he was made to sign certain papers that he later came to know became the basis for the only FIR in the case. Rights activists and Muslim bodies have kept decrying the delay in delivery of justice seeking conviction, yet no one found guilty in the case.
