Thirty one years after the infamous Kumher massacre of 1992 in Rajasthan in which 16 Dalits were killed, a special court in Bharatpur on Saturday sentenced nine people to life imprisonment and acquitted 41 others in the case. Of the 83 accused in the case, 32 died during the protracted trial and one absconded.
A crowd of the Jat community had attacked a locality inhabited by Dalits belonging to the Jatav community in broad daylight in Kumher town of the district following a dispute on June 6, 1992, and set ablaze 254 homes and hutments. All the houses were destroyed and the victims, including some women, were burnt alive in one of the worst carnages committed against Dalits. As many as 45 people were injured in the incident.
The case, which was initially investigated by the Rajasthan police, was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI recorded the statements of 283 witnesses, who were produced in the court for evidence, and filed charge-sheets against 83 accused persons.
Judge Girija Bharadwaj of the special court hearing the cases under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act acquitted 41 persons for lack of evidence and convicted nine accused, while handing down the life sentence to them. The court also imposed a fine on the convicts.
The convicts punished with life imprisonment were Lakho, Prem Singh, Man Singh, Rajveer, Pitam, Paras Jain, Chetan, Shiv Singh and Gopal.
After the protests over the massacre, the State government had appointed a Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice K.S. Lodha to probe into the incident. In its report submitted in 1996, the Commission recommended setting up of a separate cell under the direct control of the District Magistrate for collection and transmission of information about sensitive relations among various resident castes of the district.
The report was tabled in the State Assembly in 2005, 13 years after the incident, following a direction of the Rajasthan High Court.
The Centre for Dalit Rights (CDR), a non-profit outfit which had petitioned the High Court in the matter, said here on Saturday that the CBI had weakened the case by failing to produce unassailable evidence, which led to the acquittal of 41 of the accused.
CDR Director Satish Kumar said the State government should file an appeal in the High Court to challenge the acquittal and seek stern punishment to those responsible for the massacre. Mr. Kumar said Bharatpur district had witnessed caste violence at regular intervals as Jats dominate social affairs in the region in the face of a “blatant administrative apathy”.
