August 2, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-us-Sani 3, 1424

NEW DELHI, Aug 1: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has appealed to India’s Supreme Court to move several key cases from last year’s riots in Gujarat out of the state government’s hands, it was reported on Friday.

NHRC has also asked the court to reopen one of the most gruesome cases — an incident in which 14 people, mostly Moslems, were burnt alive in a bakery. Earlier this month, the 21 Hindu accused were acquitted because of a lack of evidence.

Former Supreme Court judge A.S. Anand, who heads NHRC, has asked for the bakery case to be tried outside Gujarat. Several witnesses later said they turned hostile after being threatened, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

According to government figures, about 900 people — most of them Muslim — died in bloody communal riots in Gujarat last year. Unofficial estimates put the death toll at more than 3,000.

NHRC has asked for several other serious cases to be shifted out of Gujarat for “whenever a criminal goes unpunished, it is the society at large which suffers because the victims become demoralised and criminals encouraged”.

Anand wants the case that sparked the riots to be shifted in the interest of justice.—dpa