Mukul Sinha, legal spearhead of Gujarat 2002 riots cases, passes away

The legacy of lawyer Mukul Sinha can perhaps be best judged by the fact that even when he passed away due to cancer on Monday, a petition filed by his client in an alleged fake encounter case was being heard in an Ahmedabad court. While many came to pay their respects to the labour rights lawyer who made headlines for his dogged pursuit of justice in the 2002 riots cases, Sinha’s original choice of career was a far more academic and perhaps more sedate one. [caption id=“attachment_1521147” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sinha while attending a public event. AFP[/caption] After obtaining a Masters degree in Science from IIT Kanpur, Sinha initially taught before he joined the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad in 1973. Sinha formed the Federation of Employees of Autonomous Research and Development, Education and Technical Institutes (FEARDETI) and took up their case. The plasma physicist then got his law degree in 1989 and his NGO, called the Jan Sangharsh Manch, took up various labour rights issues like the wages of employees of city and state transport corporations. However, he shot into the national limelight when he took on the Gujarat government over the 2002 communal riots, forming a team of 20 lawyers to take on cases related to the Godhra train attack and its aftermath. He also went after the Gujarat state over extra-judicial killings involving Sadiq Jamal, Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsi Prajapati. Apart from senior state police officials who were implicated in the case, former minister of state for home in Gujarat Amit Shah was also arrested in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh case and is presently out on bail. However, while there have been successes, Sinha also faced disappointments in the course of his legal battles. He was shocked when the BJP decided to put Shah in charge of the party’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh, despite the murder charges against him. Despite also securing the death penalty for former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani, in the Naroda Patiya massacre case, Sinha was unhappy that the state government was working to reduce the sentence against her. Outside the courts, Sinha helped set up the website ’truthofgujarat.com’, along with son Pratik and wife Nirjhari, which he claimed would counter the various claims made by the BJP state government on its handling of the 2002 riots and other issues. Despite being slowed down by lung cancer, Sinha refused to be bogged down by treatment and, while attending an award function on 8 March, said he still felt quite energetic. Even friends admitted he may have chased an impossible dream, perhaps proven true by current political predictions, but while he may no longer be around to raise inconvenient questions for the Gujarat government, his legal battle may continue to make rake up cases that some may have hoped to brush under the carpet.