Whatever the motivation was, Joshi and his cabinet colleagues conferred one sunny Tuesday morning and decided to send Justice Srikrishna back to work. Finish the inquiry by January 1997, they told him. But the high court had the final word on that. For two reasons. The second is that the antics of the government and the Shiv Sena in and about the inquiry speak loud enough already of their guilt in the riots.
Unofficial estimates are, of course, much higher.
But whatever the real toll was, it contrasts quite dramatically with the number of riot-related cases that have resulted in convictions in the intervening years. We have not been told who the accused were in these four cases, what their crimes were, what their sentences are. In fact, more than 60 per cent of the 2,267 criminal cases filed in connection with the riots have been closed. Even among the cases which have actually reached the courts, the convictions in those four must be viewed as unfortunate. For 17 others have resulted in acquittals.