File Photo: Police personnnel and locals in Bhagalpur town in Bihar.
More than 1,000 people were killed in communal riots in Bhagalpur nearly 25 years ago because "those who had the power to act, abandoned the quest". That's the searing indictment of policemen and the Congress government that was led by Satyendra Narayan Sinha by a retired judge who investigated the riots that scorched Bihar in 1989.
The 1000-page report with the findings of retired judge NN Singh was presented to Bihar lawmakers in the state legislature today. It says - highlighting that many cases linked to the riots have still not concluded - "wounds have not been healed, and adequate and sufficient rehabilitation had not been provided to the sufferers."
The Bhagalpur riots were triggered in October 1989, when a religious Hindu procession in the area was targeted by bombs.
Mass killings followed in this part of northeast Bihar, ravaging the town of Bhagalpur and nearly 250 villages around it.
For weeks before the riots, right-wing Hindu groups had organized a brick collection drive for a temple in Ayodhya, where, three years later, the 16th-century Babri Masjid mosque would be razed. With police escort, members of groups like the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) were passing through Bhagalpur with the bricks they had sourced when bombs were hurled. 11 policemen were injured; nobody was killed, but riots flared and spread immediately. The violence lasted nearly a month. Of the more than 1,000 victims, most were Muslims.
An initial report on the riots was presented by three judges in 1995 and indicted policemen and the state administration. Before he was elected Chief Minister in 2005, Nitish Kumar pledged that he would order a new inquiry into the Bhagalpur riots, and reopen several cases to identify and punish the guilty.