New Delhi: The Citizens Committee on the Delhi Riots, an independent probe panel set up by the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), has asked all those who have information and material to reach out to the members, in confidence.
The CCG is a collective of former civil servants who worked with the Central government as well as different state governments. The Delhi riots probe panels comprises former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur, former Chief Justice of the Madras and Delhi high courts and former chairman, Law Commission Justice A.P. Shah, former judge of the Delhi high court Justice R.S. Sodhi, former judge of the Patna high court Justice Anjana Prakash, former Union home secretary G.K. Pillai, and former director-general of the Bureau of Police Research and Development Meeran Chadha Borwankar.
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In a public notice, the members have asked all those “who have information and material pertaining to Delhi riots to send such information and material, in as much detail as possible, to the Committee. Based on a perusal of this information, the Committee may invite persons for further interactions, keeping their identity confidential.” Submissions are to be made here.
The purview of the committee, according to the public notice, is:
- To inquire into the events that transpired before and during the riots, including the response of the state machinery in dealing with the violence, restoring law and order, and related matters.
- To analyse and assess the response of the police in investigating the riots.
- To examine the role of the mainstream and social media in spreading information, both genuine and fake, before, during and after the riots, and its impact on events.
- To assess the civic administration’s efforts at providing relief and extending reparations to the victims of riots.
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“Within this framework of principles, the Committee will collect and scrutinise primary material, including first person account of those who have direct knowledge of the events and issues within the Committee’s purview, FIRs, Charge-sheets and other documents prepared by government agencies, audio-visual and documentary material that have a bearing on matters under examination. The Committee will also review secondary material including reports and accounts already in the public domain,” members have said.
While announcing the probe panel, the CCG had said that the horrific nature of the riots in North-East Delhi in February 2020, the scale of violence, the loss of lives and the resulting communal divide between communities highlighted the need for an expert body to conduct a thorough examination of what transpired before, during and after the riots.