But didn t the Rajiv Gandhi Government order a judicial inquiry into the violence?
A. The inquiry itself turned out to be a part of the cover-up. The Supreme Court judge who conducted the inquiry, Ranganath Misra, subsequently joined the Congress party and became a member of the Rajya Sabha on its ticket. Misra s pre-determination to give the Congress party and its leaders a clean chit was so obvious that a panel of eminent persons, Citizens Justice Committee, which was the main representative of the victims, walked out half-way through his inquiry. The inquiry report that followed did little to dispel the impression that the Misra Commission only white-washed the riots. The Rajiv Gandhi Government and its successors went through the motions of follow up action but nothing concrete came out of that elaborate charade. Nobody of consequence among political leaders, bureaucrats or police officers has so far been convicted for his role in the massacre. It was against such a dismal background that in 2000 the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government, even after a lapse of 16 years
