Tikri Brahman case: Petitioners rebut state govt contentions

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 26

Nearly four months after houses were burnt and people allegedly attacked in the presence of police officials in Tikri Brahman village in Palwal district, the controversy over the genesis of the violence continues.

Just about 20 days after the state of Haryana claimed that the incident was given the colour of communal riots, the petitioners today said the case was a classic example of intolerance and intimidation meted out to the minority community in the state.

In a rejoinder filed in the High Court, Punjab’s former Advocate-General Rajinder Singh Cheema and advocate Arshdeep Singh Cheema contended on the petitioners’ behalf.

“It is shocking to see that the investigating agency in its reply/status report has termed the occurrence of July 5 as an altercation in the village and not a planned and sustained attack on the minority community. The documents placed on record clearly point towards the fact that the occurrence was an attack on the minority community and the same was well-planned and people from outside were involved in the attack,” they said.

“If the true genesis of the unfortunate sequence is not exposed and the wrongdoers are not effectively dealt with in accordance with law, the consequences may be a multiplication of similar planned attacks on targeted minorities,” they added.

The court was also told that 22 persons affected by the occurrence belonged to the minority community. “Not even a single penny has been awarded to the people of the majority community. This would point towards the fact that there was no damage suffered by the people of majority community,” the court was told.

Denying the state claims of complete peace and tranquillity in the village, the petitioners added that the atmosphere of surcharged hatred against the minority community was being kept alive by sustained propaganda. “There is an atmosphere of fear and insecurity among the victims,” the petitioners said. The petitioners also denied that fair and detailed investigation is going on in the present matter.

In the petition filed by Mohammad Haneef and four other residents of Tikri Brahman village, the Cheemas had earlier claimed on the petitioners’ behalf that there was “a planned and sustained campaign to isolate, victimise and terrorise the members of the minority community in Tikri Brahman village in particular and in the areas surrounding that village in general”.

Elaborating, the Cheemas added that an organised and systematically planned attack was carried out on the victims. Contemporaneously, the administration did not take pre-emptive action though it was aware of “emerging potentially explosive situation”. It was either “indifferent”, or remained a “mere bystander”.