Approach HC, SC tells Haryana village violence victims

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to entertain the plea for a CBI probe into recent violence in Atali village in Haryana's Faridabad district in which members of the minority community were forced to leave and take shelter in Ballabhgarh city police station.

Refusing to entertain the plea for the transfer of investigation from Haryana Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the vacation bench of Justice Prafulla C. Pant and Justice Amitava Roy asked the victims of the communal violence to approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court to raise their grievances.

The violence which is rooted in the construction of a mosque on Wakf land with all required permission, the petition said, has resulted in 1,000 members of the minority community fleeing their houses leaving behind their belongings after a mob targeted their cars, tractors, motor bikes and other utilities.

Alleging a nexus between the mob and the local police, the petitioners said that 400 people belonging to the community have moved to their relatives places and 600, including women and children, have taken shelter in the Ballabhgarh city police station instead of the local police station, whose SHO is allegedly turning a blind eye to the perpetrators of the violence.

Noting that till date not a single person involved in the violence has been arrested, the petition says that "miscreants are roaming fearlessly and threatening that if the displaced persons come to their houses, they will again attack them".

The petition said that the members of the minority community would return to their abandoned dwellings only if they are given "protection and security" and the culprits of the violence are arrested and their looted properties are recovered and restored to them.