The story of former Mumbai Police Commissioner Ramdeo Tyagi, who died on October 15, is that of a Goliath who managed to triumph over the D...
The story of former Mumbai Police Commissioner Ramdeo Tyagi, who died on October 15, is that of a Goliath who managed to triumph over the Davids who took him on. Like the Biblical David, they seemed no match for the police officer. Their political clout was zero; their economic status shaky. What they possessed, though, was a fierce determination to see Tyagi punished as the most senior of the 31 policemen indicted by the BN Srikrishna Commission of Inquiry into the Mumbai 1992-’93 riots.
Unlike for David, this just wasn’t enough for them.
The riots in December 1992 and January 1993, which followed the destruction of the Babri Masjid, left around 900 people dead. When the government-appointed Srikrishna Commission released its report in 1998, it indicted Tyagi and two senior officers of the Special Operation Squad he headed during the riots when he was Joint Commissioner (Crime), for a raid on Suleman Usman Bakery on Mohammed Ali Road on January 9, 1993, that left eight innocent unarmed Muslims dead.
The police had claimed that terrorists were firing on them from the bakery; but their raid yielded neither terrorists nor firearms. Tyagi maintained that he never entered the bakery, but only ordered his men to do so.
Findings rejected
Had it...
