Hashimpura massacre: I was also shot, pretended to be dead

A family member of one of the Hashimpura victims attends a seminar in New Delhi Tuesday. (Express Photo by: Anil Sharma)

A day after personnel of Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) were acquitted in the Hashimpura massacre of May 1987, families of victims, those who escaped the killings, and social activists spoke out against the judgement. Vrinda Grover, advocate for the families of the victims also said that the judgement showed a “systemic problem in the system.”

Zulfikar Nasir, who was the first prosecution witness and was part of the group that was allegedly separated from others and then shot at said, “I was in the truck after been separated from others and the PAC started pulling us out and shooting us one by one. I was also shot but I pretended to be dead. They tried to throw my body into the canal but I held on to a bush and survived. I heard the gunshots and people crying out for much longer,” Nasir said.

Others like Mohammad Usman recounted the massacre in even more vivid details, bitterly disappointed at the judgement. “It was a yellow truck, and when we were taken from Hashimpura, we were not allowed to stand in the back of the truck as it took us to the canal. There was a policeman with a stick inside who made us sit…I used to be a clothseller, now I sell fruit, everything finished that day,” Usman, another who escaped the shootings said.

A press release issued by “Justice for Hashimpura Committee” said, “The testimonies of these survivors and other evidences establish before the court that the men of mohalla Hashimpura were indeed killed by men in uniform as part of a planned criminal conspiracy.”

The victims’ lawyer Vrinda Grover said, “At each state a fair, rigorous and impartial investigation was systematically thwarted. The material pieces of evidence, both documentary and ocular, were either not collected, or destroyed, or allowed to disappear. This was not an accidental lapse but rather a pre-mediated omission and criminal negligence designed to dilute the prosecution case and shield the accused.”

Source:: Indian Express