Meerut: Close to a cluster of untended graves, not far from Hashimpura, Iqramuddin, now 52 years old, sits stoically holding a ‘bidi’ between his worn out and rickety fingers, while an Urdu newspaper announcing court sentence for 16 PAC constables for gunning down 41 men 31 years ago nearby, rests on his other hand.He points towards a raised mud platform, on the margins of the graveyard, where six members of his family were hurriedly buried after being massacred along with 66 others on May 23, 1987. Just a day after the infamous Hashimpura massacre, another similar “organised” killing took place in nearby Maliyana where at least 72 people belonging to the minority community were murdered, again “in collusion” with PAC men. Maliyana is situated adjacent to Meerut city railway station, and is only 4 km from Hashimpura.“People of Hashimpura were lucky as-- even after three decades-- a missing general diary was found and it nailed all accused in Delhi high court. They got justice, at last. However, getting justice for the kin of Maliyana massacre victims will be difficult as most of the clinching documents are missing, or have been destroyed,” said a survivor who is following the case for 30 years.Remembering the fateful day, Iqramuddin recalls: “Rioters had set my sister Naseem Bano’s house on fire after hacking my brother -in-law Mahmood to death. Naseem caught hold of her four kids, and all of them were burnt alive inside the house. The next morning, their charred bodies were inseparable and they were buried together in a single grave.”In the last 31 years, the case has been adjourned 900 times and statements of only eight witnesses out of total 70 have been recorded. This all happened in a fast-track court.Like Iqramuddin, the hope for justice is a “distant dream” for the survivor and kin of Maliyana victims.Mohammed Yakub, who was 27-year-old then, says: “Without any provocation, the rioters began attacking houses while the mob indulged in looting and rioting. Out of 214 homes, 106 were burnt. 72 people were either shot dead or burnt alive. Later, several men were rounded up in the settlement and beaten up mercilessly. I was one of them.”Despite, passage of over three decades, memories of the fateful day are still fresh among those who witnessed it.Munni Begum, 65, was reduced to tears while recalling her 4-year-old son’s killing.“There were sounds of gunshots and screaming from every direction. We ran into an adjacent house to save ourselves, but our 4-year-old son was left behind. Later, we found him completely charred, and reduced to bones between the two gutted rickshaws,” she said.Vakil Hasan was 25 years old then. He received a bullet in the abdomen and lost one kidney.While Gulzar Nabi still gets shivers when he recalls the death of a woman and her two children he had witnessed.“Her house was set on fire by the mob. She must have clutched her two children in her arms when fire engulfed her. When hours of killings stopped, we ventured out to look for the survivors. I saw the charred bodies of this woman holding her two kids. The image never left me alone,” says Nabi.Alauddin Siddiqui, who has been fighting the case on behalf of victims, says: “Important documents like particulars of general diary entry and FIR went missing from court records. All efforts were made to destroy evidence at every level to weaken the case.”Siddiqui further said: “From the very beginning, the intention of the investigative officials was questionable. After high profile visits including that of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Lal Krishna Advani, the then CM of UP Veer Bahadur Singh, Justice Gurusharan Lal committee was set up to conduct inquiry into the killings. I had assisted in that inquiry. The report was submitted in the UP assembly three years later in 1990. But, ever since, it is gathering dust there.”

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