THE Bihar HC verdict of 16 April, acquitting all Bathani Tola accused, repeatedly holds that the witnesses (survivors) are ‘lying’ and ‘spinning tales’ and being ‘untrustworthy’ and ‘totally unreliable.’

At one point, the verdict observes (see below) that the witnesses claim to have run away and hidden in bushes or ditches. But the IO, according to the verdict, did not find any bushes or ditches. The verdict asks that if we accept that the assailants had come to liquidate everybody, would they not have found and killed these men too?

The verdict implies: since these people are alive, we must assume they are lying about being eyewitnesses.

In other words, the verdict suggests that in any massacre, the only truthful witness can be a dead witness. Dead men and women, (un)fortunately, tell no tales, and cannot give evidence in court.

The ones who survive a carnage alive, according to the verdict, are by definition, dubious and suspicious witnesses, since if they were indeed present to witness the carnage, how come they are alive to tell the tale? Only if they were killed could they have been credible and trustworthy.

Going by this impeccable logic, can anyone ever be convicted for a carnage?
Excerpt from the verdict:

“In the present case, we find it quite conflicting that the allegation and the act are such that the miscreants had come to eliminate everyone in the village. After killing, they set fire to the houses. How could they did not bother to look for people in hiding in close vicinity of the village itself ? The witnesses and the accused are neighbours and of neighbouring Tola. They would not be exposing their identity in broad day light giving people opportunity to identify them. Some prosecution witnesses say they hid in a ditch. IO says no ditch was shown nor was it there which could show a hiding place. Ahar (irrigation channel) is conspicuous place but surprisingly the witnesses hide there and, from time to time, were able to peep out unconcerned of their safety which is quite unnatural. Some witnesses are said to have hidden in bushes like jungle but on objective finding of the IO, there was no such place. People, who were intent to liquidate everybody, naturally would have seen that there were no male members, they would have searched for male members who were all hiding in very close proximity to the village itself. This is unnatural for the prosecution witnesses. Because of these reasons, we have found the identifications made by the prosecution witnesses not worthy of reliance for the purposes of this extreme punishment of either death or life imprisonment.

The verdict does say, “thanks to the investigating agency and the administration the true culprits have escaped.”

But the verdict does not contain a breath of uncertainty about the innocence of the accused who have been named by the eyewitnesses!

Says the verdict, “People suffered, their families obliterated with no solace as to the punishment to the perpetuators. Thanks to the misguided investigation and prosecution.” But the verdict itself seems to wilfully forget that those suffering families are the ones who bore witness. By branding these sufferers and anguished survivors as “witnesses who were totally unreliable”, the verdict has rubbed salt into their wounds, and rendered them terribly vulnerable to retribution from those it set free.

Shockingly, the only three police eyewitnesses to the carnage deposed in Court as defence witnesses! What can be more telling of the biased character of the police investigation, and prosecution? But the HC verdict treats both the prosecution and eyewitnesses as equally malafide, suggesting that both conspired to frame innocents. The witnesses have been spoken of as though they are the ones in the dock.

In fact, the verdict goes to the extent of apologising to three of those accused by eyewitnesses of some of the most heinous crimes – on the claim that they were juveniles at the time of the incident, and yet have spent time in jail and been sentenced to death and life imprisonment.

What will be the impact of such a verdict on the ground in Bathani Tola?

Are the accused who have just been acquitted, being emboldened by the verdict’s implied message: that they are now free to avenge the injustice done to them by the witnesses who helped send them to jail?