It is particularly disturbing to see these distorted narratives being echoed and amplified by civil society members  who are eager to rush to criticise allegations of human rights violations,  in context-free statements, with no mention of the continuity of practice or the culture of political and judicial harassment, or their role in creating narratives and structures of exclusion based on political affiliation and opinion.

And what of the victims? For protestors who had faced arbitrary arrest and detention,

thousands of cases against them, were withdrawn swiftly. But none of those responsible for such arrests has been held to account through any criminal court, including the ill-treatment of children arrested through tying them in ropes, or the denial of access to their families and lawyers for days and for arbitrary refusal of bail. And if there has been any disciplinary action against these police and the magistrates who refused bail, there is no public information about it.

As for the killings and injuries, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cases have been filed, by the family members of the deceased, and by the victims/ survivors themselves. Other than in the ICT, there are no judgments in the ordinary courts even after two years. In fact in the vast majority of cases, investigations remain pending, with the trial not even having started. And victims remain without any answers and without any roadmap, beyond mere promises, that perpetrators will be held to account.

On the flip side, the lack of urgency, and the failure to undertake any significant reforms in terms of the practice of criminal justice (beyong legal reforms), has meant the culture of the past – of revenge and retaliation – remains largely embededed.  In many of the so called "July cases" that have been filed,  police officers involved in the shooting are neither named nor arretsed, and many FIRs contain names of hundreds of persons, many unnamed, identfied through their affiliation or membership of particular groups, rather than their presence or involvement in any occurrence.

Many of the individuals named do not appear to be directly involved, and to have been included due to their political affiliations. Despite that they have been routinely denied bail in the lower courts, with magistrates simply writing  ‘short period in custody