Police Took Part in Delhi Violence With Rioters, Says Amnesty Ground Report

New Delhi, 29 August 2020 [Fik/News Sources]:  The Delhi Police took part in violence with rioters, failed to control the mobs and tortured survivors in custody during anti-Muslim communal violence that took place in the last week of February in northeast Delhi in which 53 people were killed.

This was stated in a new report released by Amnesty International, a global human rights group, on Friday after investigating for months.

The Delhi police in their investigations into the riots have filed more than 750 First Information Reports (FIRs) and at least 200 charge-sheets. As the Delhi police investigate who is responsible for the riots, Amnesty says, there have been no investigations till now into the human rights violations committed by the Delhi police during the riots. It says, “Nobody is above the law – especially those who have a duty to uphold it.”

Amnesty suggests to the Indian Parliament that laws for investigation of communal riots should be amended and made more stringent to “explicitly prohibit” the discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, gender and political opinion.

Information gathered by Amnesty International India “reveals a pattern of human rights violations” by the police and “rampant impunity” it enjoys.

Amnesty interviewed survivors, eye-witnesses, lawyers, human rights activists and retired police officers and studied social media videos to analyse the role of the Delhi police during the riots.

New Delhi: People carrying out the leftovers from their homes under the shadow of the police after the riots in North East Delhi’s Shiv Vihar, on Feb 29, 2020. (Photo: IANS)

“These videos showed Delhi police pelting stones with the rioters, torturing people, dismantling protest sites used by peaceful protesters and being mute bystanders as rioters wreaked havoc in Delhi.”

The report talks of the build-up to the riots, including how exhortations by political leaders of BJP against the peaceful anti-CAA protestors incited the party supporters to violence and vigilantism. Giving the timeline of anti-CAA protests which began in December 2019, the report briefly touches on the events of violence by right-wing elements and the police to “repress” the protests.

It accuses Delhi police of its failure to prevent the outbreak and control of riots despite orders from the Delhi High Court to do so. Amnesty says the inadequate response of the Delhi police to hate crimes committed during the violence manifested in various ways.

Multiple survivors told Amnesty that there was no response to the distress calls on police emergency numbers, leaving them at the mercy of mobs. “The common response from the police when the victims tried calling was “Ye lo Azaadi (Take your Freedom).”

Nawab Ali, a survivor, told Amnesty: “We kept calling the police but they did not come. From 4 pm to 1 am, we were calling them. We just wanted to come out of this alive. Those people were very dangerous. It wasn’t merely an organic crowd. It was a massive crowd and they had all sorts of weapons”.

Vibhuti Narain Rai, who retired as the Director-General of Police in Uttar Pradesh, spoke with Amnesty. He said: “Communal riots cannot happen for more than 24 hours without the permission of the state. If the riot continues for more than 24 hours, you will have to question the motive of the state.”

Amnesty says the behaviour of police officers in many incidents during the violence in Delhi is a cause for concern as police officers did not intervene despite being present, intervened only to arrest or attack the anti-CAA protesters, and refused to register complaints of the victims.

Commenting on the infamous video in which policemen are forcing a group of Muslim youths to chant national anthem and kicking them while they are lying on ground begging for mercy, the report says the ruthless treatment of the heavily-injured men by the Delhi police violated the international human rights standards that allow for force to be used only as a last resort, as much necessary to achieve the objective of such use and proportional to the objective.

A man (R) speaks on his mobile phone as he walks past a burnt-out mosque and shops following clashes between people supporting and opposing a contentious amendment to India’s citizenship law, in New Delhi on February 26, 2020. – Four more people have died in some of the worst sectarian violence in decades in New Delhi, a hospital source told AFP, which takes the death toll from several days of rioting to 17. (Photo by Sajjad HUSSAIN / AFP)

One of the youths named Faizan later died in hospital due to injuries sustained in police violence.

The report says that in another video police can be seen standing shoulder to shoulder with the rioters and pelting stones and firing teargas.

The report also highlights the failure of the visit of national security adviser Ajit Doval to the riots hotspots on February 26 as he had said that the situation was “under control”. It cites the murder of two brothers, Amir and Hashim, at the hands of Hindutva mobs which took place after Doval’s visit.

Their father, Babu Khan, told Amnesty: “Ajit Doval came here and told us that we had nothing to worry about. When my sons were coming back home the next day, the rioters made my sons lie down on a bike and beat them on their head and face. There were deep wounds. There is no count of the number of times they were hit on their heads with a sword. It was the handiwork of at least 10-15 people”.

The report also touched upon the violence committed by Muslims during the riots. “The percentage may be lower but establishments and homes owned by Hindus were not left completely untouched.”

The report quotes Roop Singh, who runs a school in Shiv Vihar, saying: “I saw two ropes hanging into our compound from Rajdhani School next door and about 40-50 men climbing down. They were raising slogans of ‘nara-e-takbeer allah o akbar’ (God is Great). They opened the gate and more men came in.

The report also speaks of Delhi police’s inability to disperse the rioters who blocked the roads and denied entry to ambulances.

Dr M.A. Anwar of Al-Hind Hospital requested the Delhi police to provide security to ambulances so that they could take the injured and dead to other hospitals. But Dr. Anwar told Amnesty International India that he did not receive any assistance from the Delhi police.

“It required the nudge, sadly, of a Delhi High Court bench, for the police to do its elementary duty,” Harsh Mander, a civil rights activist, is quoted in the report.

Amnesty says it observed a pattern of torture and ill-treatment of the survivors and the people detained by in connection with the riots. They say this is a violation of the international human rights law. Amnesty took the example of Khalid Saifi, the incarcerated activist associated with United against Hate.

His wife, Nargist told Amnesty: “When I went to meet my husband I found him in a wheelchair with bandages on both his legs. He told me that he had been brutally tortured. I don’t think they even treat criminals like that”.

Another survivor Ather told Amnesty that he was stopped and identified by the police while he was returning home. When they found out that he was Muslim, they took him to police station in a van.

“There were about 25 other people in the van. They kept saying “you want azaadi (freedom)” and hitting us. We were tortured for the next four days. They beat me and others with sticks and belts. Then on 28 February, they produced me in court. I managed to get bail two weeks later”.

The report accuses the police of harassing and intimidating the survivors of the riots. Shabnam, a riot survivor and resident of Shiv Vihar, lost everything to arson during the riots. The report says her husband now runs from pillar to post for compensation.

After the riots, her 54-year old father was unlawfully detained by the Delhi police. It was only after the intervention of the Jamiat-e-Ulma Hind, a local organisation of Islamic Scholars, that he was released.

A lawyer told Amnesty International India that the Delhi police started arresting Muslims on a mass scale immediately after the riots even though the minority community bore the brunt of the violence. “This is done to ensure that there are no complaints filed against the Hindus. There is this fear among the minority community that if we go to the police station and file a complaint against a Hindu, we will get arrested,” the lawyer said.

Amnesty Appeal to Ministry of Home Affairs:

–Initiate a prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into all allegations of human rights violations by law enforcement officials including excessive use of force, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, failure to protect the survivors and other individuals from attacks by far-right groups, and the unlawful use of firearms.

–Establish a fully-independent, public and transparent inquiry to review the Delhi police’s role in failing to prevent and aiding the violence that broke out in North-East Delhi between 23 and 29 February. Such an inquiry must not have any structural or organisational connection with the police and must be provided with adequate power and resources to examine the scene of the incident and summon the witnesses.

–Suspend all police officers named by the communities, pending investigation/inquiry.

–Ensure in-service training on hate crimes and communal violence, on the specific needs of the victims and the role of police in combating and protecting people against discrimination is imparted to all police officers periodically.

–Create a comprehensive strategy aimed at preventing hate crimes against minority communities, in consultation with the civil society.

–Create comprehensive guidelines for the implementation of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials in consultation with the civil society.

–Implement the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court of India in the case of Prakash Singh v. Union of India for police reform.

–It calls on the Prime Minister of India and Ministry of External Affairs to:

Ratify, without reservations, the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) immediately and enact implementing domestic legislation criminalizing torture.

It calls on the Parliament of India to:

Amend the laws governing the police at the state and Central levels so that the grounds on the basis of which the police can investigate communal violence and arrest and detain persons are made more stringent and discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, gender and political opinion is explicitly prohibited.

Amend criminal laws at both the state and central level to include an explicit duty for police authorities to investigate any discriminatory motive behind the perpetration of the crime.

Amnesty calls on the National Human Rights Commission to:

Call for the implementation of its recommendation on establishing Human Rights Cells in state and city police headquarters.

Human Rights Cells monitor the human rights violations committed by the police officers and act as a bridge between the state police departments and the NHRC, which is the premier human rights monitoring body in India.