The Hindu : New Delhi News : A new look at communal crimes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 09, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

A new look at communal crimes

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, DEC. 8. Heeding the lessons learnt during the horrific Gujarat carnage, concerned citizens released a draft of the Communal Crimes Act, 2004, here yesterday, pre-empting any similar initiative by the Government. The group of four organisations has already forwarded the draft document to the Centre.

Though still a fairly loose compilation, the draft Communal Crimes Act, 2004, attempts to define "communal crimes''. It also includes a list of "offences'' that would amount to "communal crimes'' if committed by police person, para-military forces, members of the armed forces and all civil authorities. Such a list of "offences'' has also been drawn up for mediapersons, health professionals and members of the legal profession. It also speaks of banning communal groups.

"The Criminal Procedure Code allows certain actions to be taken during communal riots that are more in the nature of enabling provisions. Until the Gujarat riots, this was sufficient. But after what we saw in Gujarat, there is a need to change this. The State refused to prevent the build-up of violence, once violence broke out in the State, it refused to play a role in combating it and in the aftermath of the violence, the State refused to set up sufficient relief camps for people,'' said social activist Harsh Mander at a press conference in the city today.

He stressed the importance of defining the responsibility of the State. "The citizens should be able to hold the State legally not just morally accountable to perform its duties,'' he added.

The draft defines the "Preventive Action'' to be taken by the Government and the proper conduct of the prosecution. It also requires the constitution of a "Communal Crime Prevention Authority'' and defines the powers of such an authority.

It also outlines punishments on committing communal crimes -- that could run into life imprisonment or hefty fines -- and compensation for the victims of communal crimes. According to the draft, compensation rates should not be left to discretion, but need to be decided by an independent commission.

Finally, the draft also provides for Commissions of Enquiry. Claiming the provisions for the Commission to be different from "all existing ones'', advocate Colin Gonsalves, said: "Presently, the evidence given in front of Enquiry Commissions cannot be used in Court of Law but through this Act we want to change that. And also, the report of such Commissions and findings should be binding on the State Government.''

Drafted by Human Rights Law Network, Anhad, Jansangharsh Manch and Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, the document at present does have a number of debatable clauses. "This is not the final draft. The Common Minimum Programme of the Government speaks about a model comprehensive law to deal with communal violence and we heard that there are discussions going on towards this. But before the Government comes out with some weak law, we wanted to put forward a draft so that we could them compare it with what we want,'' claimed Mr. Gonsalves.

A national consultation is also being planned with various organisations from all over the country to further debate on the draft.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi