GUJARAT 2002
‘I fought for the victims because there was nobody to fight for
them’ says Sohel Tirmizi.
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| Sohel Tirmizi |
The criminal lawyer is often described by
human rights activists as the ‘bedrock’ of their fight for justice in the riots
cases. Tirmizi, 48, has so far been the counsel in over 140 riot-related cases
and was responsible for recording statements of dozens of riot victims, which
were eventually placed before the SC.
When did you join the legal profession? Were you the
first from your family to join this profession?
I joined the profession in June 1990. We have always lived in Ahmedabad. I’m
the first from my family to take up legal practice. My mother was a
schoolteacher and my father served in the Income Tax department. In 2001, my
brother moved to Canada and my sister left for the US with her husband. All
three of my siblings are engineers.
How did you get associated with the riot
cases?
I had practised criminal cases for a long time. I used to fight a lot of cases
for the minority communities. After 2002, several members of the minority
community who had suffered during the riots started coming to me for advice.
They used to complain that their FIRs were not being registered. In the initial
days of curfew, even I could not go to court. My attendance was irregular
during those days. But people kept coming to me with enquiries. For instance,
even when the rioters had gutted several areas, only one common, clubbed FIR
used to be registered. The motive behind that was to downplay the scale of
violence in official records. Moreover, a flawed FIR also substantially weakens
the case. In so many instances, the police would simply refuse to name the
accused identified by the victims in the FIR. In short, the entire state
machinery was working overtime to protect the rioters. Those were despairing
times for the victims.
Was this happening only in Ahmedabad? Did
Muslims from other districts also approach you?
Muslims from several places used to seek my advice. Then came the NGOs and
social workers. They needed someone who could look after the cases that were
piling up. At that time, I had a good number of juniors assisting me. I decided
to fight only for the victims because they had lost everything and there was
nobody to fight for them. Many of them had nothing left to pay the lawyers. We
thought we should not be giving an impression that the state machinery and
legal institutions were out of bounds to the victims. It was our duty to
instill the faith in the Constitution of our country.
Can you recount any specific instances?
I vaguely remember this victim who came to me in 2003. The police used to take
some witnesses to a particular station from the camps to record their
testimonies. But on the way, they would use coercion and fear tactics to
intimidate the witness. The victim who had come to me said that all the
perpetrators he wanted to name were already present inside the station when he
walked in. There’s another case in Radhanpur. Two boys were injured and they
were being taken to a hospital by local Muslims. A mob chased the tempo and the
driver fled. One of the injured in the tempo tried to run but he was caught and
hacked to pieces. There were more than 90 injuries on his body. Another person
who was in the tempo had a bullet injury and could not run. The miscreants
burnt the tempo with the boy inside. But the police named members of both the
communities on charges of arson and looting. This happened on 1 March 2002. We
tried to file several FIRs, but in vain. Finally an FIR was registered after
much litigation. But the matter was allowed to drag on without any positive
outcome. Nothing happened in the case for 10 years. The complainants also got
fatigued and now they don’t want to pursue it anymore.
In total, how many cases did you fight for
the victims?
At the Gujarat High Court, I think I fought approximately 140 cases.
Before the riots, you must have had a certain
perception about the judiciary in Gujarat. How has your experience been within
the courts after the carnage?
Before the riots, people were not so polarised. As a lawyer fighting for the
minority community, I remember the situation was much better. Today, even the
Muslims who are in a position to help the less fortunate don’t come out openly
to help a fellow Muslim. They believe that they will professionally succeed
only if they keep away from people of their community who are fighting against
the state government. There are Muslims who are happy in Gujarat. But please
ask these happy Muslims if they have done anything for their community in
Gujarat; when the shops and offices of Muslims were burnt; when women were
raped and children were massacred.
You took the risk of standing up for your
community and for the cause of justice. Looking back, what do you think you
have gained and what have you lost?
I suffered a lot of setbacks by taking up these cases. First of all, an
impression has grown in legal circles that I’m anti-Hindu. There’s so much
propaganda against me. They (the fundamentalists) have their own machinery for
that. I have not defended or appeared for any anti-national. But just because
I’ve fought for the riot victims, I’m not received well. Obviously, on a
practical level, this has a deterring effect on my clientele. They chastise me
for asking for the transfer of investigation outside Gujarat. They dissuade me
in a lot of ways to not to fight for the minorities. But this has also meant that
I have to concentrate even harder on my cases and briefs. I’m hauled up in
courts for innocuous mistakes that other lawyers could afford to make and get
away. But I can’t do that. I’m singled out. But this has only toughened me and
made me more thorough and professional in my work. Less dependency on juniors
and even less reliability on others.
‘Muslims believe that they will professionally succeed only if they keep away from people of their community who are fighting against the state government’
Has your experience strengthened your resolve
to help the poor? What about your faith in secularism and the Constitution?
Yes, my resolve has strengthened. The way things are going, it gets difficult
sometimes to keep one’s faith. But Gujarat is not the end of everything. Even
in Gujarat, we have seen justice in quite a good number of matters. And I’m
sure things will improve in the future. More and more people should be
encouraged to fight for the poor.
Do you see any change in the criminal justice
system?
There’s a lot of polarisation in Gujarat. Tomorrow, if anybody stands for
election under Modi, there’s a good chance he will win. There’s hatred in
different places and different levels. What to do? The bias still exists in the
police and legal machinery. You are accepted well if you mind your own
business. But if you start fighting for innocent victims against the state
machinery, you become very unpopular. There’s something terribly wrong with the
general thinking. The only recourse is to argue your case in court, convince
the judges and prove your opponents wrong.
G Vishnu is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
Source: Tehelka dot com
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