Experts at a discussion on the 2020 Delhi riots organised by the Constitutional Conduct Group.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Journalists, retired jurists and former civil servants at an event here on Friday said that the institutional bias in Delhi Police and rising hatred towards minority communities were to blame for the rise in communal clashes.
To mark three years since the north-east Delhi riots, a series of panel discussions took place at ‘Uncertain Justice’, a programme organised by the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG).
The CCG is an organisation of retired civil servants.
Participants at the programme deliberated on the Citizens Committee Report, which sheds light on the events that resulted in the violence across the national capital in 2020.
Lawyer Vrinda Grover headed the discussion ‘Eruption of Communal Violence and the Response of State Agencies’, where former Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai was invited.
“It was not the inadequacy of police forces, but the institutional bias among the Delhi police force that enabled the north-east Delhi riots to take the shape that it took,” Ms. Grover said.
When reached out for a comment, Delhi Police did not give a response till the time of publishing this report.
Mirroring Ms. Grover’s views at another discussion, CCG chairperson and former Supreme Court judge Madan B. Lokur said, “If we can make citizens accountable, then we must make the police accountable too.”
The programme also saw participation of other eminent personalities, including senior advocate Rebecca John, former Delhi High Court Chief Justice A.P. Shah and The Caravan executive editor Hartosh Singh Bal, among others.
