Condemning the communal violence that gripped parts of the national Capital last month as a consequence of protests against the new Citizenship law, CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury on Monday called for a court-monitored independent probe into it in a time-bound manner. Addressing a press conference here, he referred to videos claiming that the police allegedly aided the violent attackers and said the perpetrators of the violence must be brought to book.
"The ghastly communal violence in Delhi is strongly condemned and a court-monitored, independent investigation into these crimes must be conducted in a time-bound fashion. The perpetrators of this violence must be severely punished under law.
"Video footage going viral on social media shows how the police aided and abetted the criminals who perpetrated such violent attacks. This must be thoroughly investigated by a time-bound judicial enquiry," Yechury said.
Speaking on the issues discussed in the party's politburo meeting, he said the politburo strongly condemned the Home Minister's on the usage of face-recognition technology for identifying those responsible for the communal violence. "The government itself has admitted before the courts that this technology had an accuracy rate of only two per cent in 2018, which dropped to a mere one per cent in 2019, unable to make even a gender distinction.
"This opens up possibilities for harassment and persecution of innocent people. Moreover, there is no legal framework or any judicial order to use such technology for such identification," the CPI(M) general
secretary said. He added that a relief panel of the CPI-M's Delhi State Committee was working to provide relief to those families who lost members in the communal violence, treat the injured and rehabilitate those whose houses were burnt and livelihoods snatched away.