South Asia Citizens Web

Dr. Daya Varma, life-long communist, scientist, activist, dreamer, pharmacologist, professor emeritus at McGill University, Montreal, passed away on 22 March 2015

Today, on 24th March 2015, the families of Mohalla Hashimpura whose men were shot dead; and the five survivors, of the worst custodial communal killings in independent India expressed their anguish, suffering and outrage at the judgment of the Delhi Trial Court that acquitted all the accused Policemen of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). 28 years later, they remembered every detail of that fateful day when about 50 men of Mohalla Hashimpura were abducted by a Unit of the 41st Battalion of PAC in a yellow coloured PAC truck by 19 members of this Unit. [photos included below are by Mukul Dube]

On March 16th 2015, the Haryana Government unanimously passed Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Bill with main opposition parties INLD and Congress supporting the Bill. The new bill passed by the Haryana Government bans cow slaughter and sale of beef and imposes a punishment of rigorous imprisonment of not less than three years extending up to 10 years and fines ranging from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. one lakh. The Haryana Government’s move comes just days after the President’s assent to Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill 1995 early this month.

Whatever freedom we enjoy in this country, whatever "modernity" we have in this country, whatever social equality we have achieved in this country, is continuously under attack, and its preservation is made possible by the continuous struggles undertaken by a large number of persons scattered all over India. They do not make it to New Delhi’s TV studios, they are not to be found in the corridors of power in the nation’s capital, and they do not even belong to the metropolitan centres of the country. But, because of their sheer dedication, indefatigable energy and unquestionable integrity, they wield great influence among the people in their respective regions, in spite of the overwhelming odds stacked against them. Among all such persons, Govind Pansare was undoubtedly one of the finest.

Sabrang Brings you Material on the Hashimpura Massacre (Meerut Hasimpura 1987)
http://www.sabrang.com/Infocus/Public%20Hearing%20March%2024%202015-%20Justice%20to%20Survivors%20of%20Hashimpura.pdf
Public Hearing March 24 2015- Justice to Survivors of Hashimpura
http://www.sabrang.com/Infocus/VNRAILatest.htm
Hashimpura Aquittal, Tragic but not Unexpected : Vibhuti Narain Rai, IPS (retired), March 23, 2015
http://www.sabrang.com/Infocus/VNRAI1995.htm
Exclusive 1995 Interview of (…)