NEW DELHI: Amid the growing demand for a judicial inquiry into the recent Mathura violence, the Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday ordered a judicial probe into the incident, hours after the Supreme Court refused to entertain a plea seeking a CBI probe into it.
The UP government appointed retired Allahabad High Court judge Imtiyaz Murtaza to conduct the inquiry. The inquiry committee has been asked to submit its report within two months.
“A judicial probe has been ordered into the Mathura violence. Retired Allahabad High Court judge Imtiyaz Murtaza will conduct the inquiry,” an official spokesperson said Tuesday, adding that the panel would go into the circumstances that led to the violence and would also make suggestions that to help ensure such incidents do not recur.
Tuesday morning, a vacation bench of the Supreme Court Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy said it was up to the State government to approach the Centre for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the violence that resulted the death of 29 people, including two police officers, while members of the Swadheen Bharat Subhash Sena were being evicted from a public park on the orders of Allahabad High Court.
“From your petition, there is no evidence to suggest there is any lapse on the part of state investigating agency or no steps are being taken for fair probe. Without any evidence that state investigating agencies are not working properly, courts cannot interfere,” the bench observed.
The bench said that petitioner Ashwini Upadhaya could not approach the apex court through a Public Interest Litigation petition when a plea on a similar issue was already pending before the Allahabad High Court.“You approach the Allahabad High Court for the remedy,” the bench said.
It further said it was not inclined to pass any order and courts could not order probes by the Central Bureau of Investigation as a matter of routine as it is for the State government concerned to decide on the issue of handing over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Meanwhile, district authorities said that the postmortem reports of 19 of the 29 people killed in the violence showed none of them had died of bullet injuries and that burns, lathi blows and stone-pelting had caused the deaths. Of the 19, 12 died of burns and seven due to injuries received in lathicharge and stone-pelting, said Mathura SSP Babloo Kumar and District Magistrate Nikhil Shukla at press conference.
Ultimatum worked?
UP police began a probe based on a cow slaughter complaint against the Dadri lynching victim’s family, a day after a village mahapanchayat gave the administration a 20-day ultimatum to start the probe.