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Patil refuses comment on Nanavati report

February 10, 2005 16:29 IST

Union home minister Shivraj Patil on Thursday refused to comment on the anti-Sikh riots report submitted to him on Wednesday by Justice G T Nanavati.

"I am not taking any questions on the Nanavati report," Patil told newspersons at the Constitution Club in New Delhi, where he had gone to deliver a keynote address at state minorities' commissions meeting convened by the National Minority Commission. The report runs 185 pages in two volumes.

Patil even refused to say when the contents of the reports would be made public.

On Wednesday Justice Nanavati said it was up to the government to reveal the reports' contents. "I will speak on the issue at an appropriate time," he said.

Meanwhile, NMC chairman Sardar Tarlochan Singh told rediff.com that he had little hope of remedial action from the present report.

"Justice Nanavati has taken more then five years to submit his findings. So many commissions have dealt with the issue but no remedial action has been taken. How can you do justice when only one first information report has been registered for 100 murders? FIRs are the basic requirement to go into cases of riots," he said.

Singh said he would write to the home ministry seeking a copy of the report so that the NMC could study it and make its own recommendations. "If proper action had been taken in 1984 then other riots would not have taken place," he remarked.

Onkar Singh in New Delhi