MUMBAI: A sessions court here issued fresh summons to witnesses to proceed with the trial of the Suleman Usman bakery firing case during the riots in the city between December 1992 and January 1993. The court had earlier issued summons in the case about three years back.
Public prosecutor Jyoti Sawant said fresh summons were issued and that the case would now come up in court again on September 17, when the witnesses would have to appear. Recently, there was a demand that the trials in the 1992-93 riots be expedited.
The case is significant in the light of accusations against several cops, including former police commissioner R D Tyagi who was joint commissioner of police (crime) at the time of the incident. Tyagi and 17 police officers had been charged for murder by a special task force set up by the government. The STF was set up in 2000 to act upon the Srikrishna Commission Report into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots. The report had found Tyagi and two others responsible for the acts of crime of ordering his men to fire at the bakery and the men who were hiding there and also at those in the adjoining mosque.
Tyagi’s defence was that they had received a wireless message from the police picket near the bakery stating that there was firing from the bakery and hence, he had entered the bakery with his squad. He said he had asked the “miscreants” to surrender and when the men from inside threw stones and acid bulbs, he had used tear gas shells and asked his men to make arrests, use minimum force and take their own precaution. The policemen were armed with sophisticated weapons.
Tyagi and eight others were discharged in the case by the Bombay high court and the order was later upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. Some of the police officers were also discharged, said a lawyer.
In its April 2011 ruling, the SC had confirmed the orders passed by the Bombay high court and the sessions court that had discharged Tyagi and eight others in the Suleman Usman bakery firing case of 1993. The Supreme Court had held that on that fateful day Tyagi and the other police men “did not fire a single bullet”. The charge was of murdering eight innocent persons during the peak of January 1993 communal riots by opening fire inside the bakery in Dongri.
The Supreme Court order came after a riot victim, Noorul Huda, challenged the order of discharge in the court saying it had nullified the case against them wrongly.
Public prosecutor Jyoti Sawant said fresh summons were issued and that the case would now come up in court again on September 17, when the witnesses would have to appear. Recently, there was a demand that the trials in the 1992-93 riots be expedited.
The case is significant in the light of accusations against several cops, including former police commissioner R D Tyagi who was joint commissioner of police (crime) at the time of the incident. Tyagi and 17 police officers had been charged for murder by a special task force set up by the government. The STF was set up in 2000 to act upon the Srikrishna Commission Report into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots. The report had found Tyagi and two others responsible for the acts of crime of ordering his men to fire at the bakery and the men who were hiding there and also at those in the adjoining mosque.
Tyagi’s defence was that they had received a wireless message from the police picket near the bakery stating that there was firing from the bakery and hence, he had entered the bakery with his squad. He said he had asked the “miscreants” to surrender and when the men from inside threw stones and acid bulbs, he had used tear gas shells and asked his men to make arrests, use minimum force and take their own precaution. The policemen were armed with sophisticated weapons.
Tyagi and eight others were discharged in the case by the Bombay high court and the order was later upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. Some of the police officers were also discharged, said a lawyer.
In its April 2011 ruling, the SC had confirmed the orders passed by the Bombay high court and the sessions court that had discharged Tyagi and eight others in the Suleman Usman bakery firing case of 1993. The Supreme Court had held that on that fateful day Tyagi and the other police men “did not fire a single bullet”. The charge was of murdering eight innocent persons during the peak of January 1993 communal riots by opening fire inside the bakery in Dongri.
The Supreme Court order came after a riot victim, Noorul Huda, challenged the order of discharge in the court saying it had nullified the case against them wrongly.