Has the Nanavati Commission proved to be any different from its predecessor Misra Commission?
A. For one, the proceedings before the Nanavati Commission have all been in public while the Misra Commission held the entire inquiry in camera. To its credit, the Nanavati Commission did not take to the veil of secrecy even when political leaders like P.V. Narasimha Rao and former police commissioner S.C. Tandon were summoned to be questioned for their role in the riots. Nanavati has also been more receptive to the requests for calling for original documents rather than following Misra s practice of relying mainly on the replies the Government gave to interrogatories. Such openness on the part of the Nanavati Commission has yielded a whole lot of hitherto suppressed evidence about the massacres. Even though the Nanavati Commission is still in the thick of its inquiry, its proceedings have already thrown fresh light on how the state machinery contributed to the massacre. The Police records have revealed, for instance, that the first action top police officers took everywhere was to dis
