The Maharashtra Government on Tuesday informed the Bombay High Court that the process to assess the damage caused to public as well private property during the 2012 riots at Azad Maidan will be over by the first week of July.
“The process is on and this exercise will be over by the first week of the next month. We will find out the monetary losses caused to the people and fix responsibility on the concerned wrongdoers and recover money from them,” public prosecutor Sandeep Shinde told a bench of Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode.
The state’s submission came following an observation made by the court earlier that the government cannot neglect the damage caused to the persons during the riots.
The judges had also sought to know from the state if an amount has been fixed towards damage caused to public as well as private property.
The court is hearing a PIL filed by Sanket Satope, a city resident, seeking direction to the government to arrive at an amount and recover it from organisers of the rally at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai during which the violence took place.
The state had informed another bench on last occasion that the collector’s office had arrived at an amount of Rs 2.75 crore as damage to public property. “The collector’s office is conducting an inquiry against over 70 accused and 964 witnesses,” it was submitted.
The court, however, opined that while the collector has estimated the cost of damage caused to public property, the loss caused due to personal injuries have not been considered.
Two youths were killed and 52 persons, including 44 policemen, injured on August 11 when a rally called to protest alleged atrocities on Muslims in Assam and Myanmar, at Azad Maidan in South Mumbai turned violent. The protesters went on a rampage, attacking police, media persons and vehicles.
