Among the others indicted are Sena MP from north-west Mumbai Madhukar Sarpotdar, minister of state for home Gajanan Kirtikar, former city mayor Milind Vaidya and former Sena MLC, the late Ramesh More. The commission has also recommended action against nine police officials for abdication of duty, active participation in riots, communal incidents or incidents of looting and arson. The Maharashtra government has rejected the operative findings as "biased" even while accepting several other recommendations for administrative action to improve the ability of the police force to react to such situations in future.

Among other things, the commission strongly condemned Thackeray's role, "wholike a veteran general commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organised attacks against Muslims." The commission's report, running into two sections adding up to 235 pages, says that "from January 8, 1993, at least, there is no doubt that the Shiv Sena and Shiv Sainiks took the lead in organising attacks on Muslims and their properties under the guidance of several leaders of the Shiv Sena from the level of shakha pramukh to the Shiv Sena pramukh Bal Thackeray". The commission also had some harsh things to say about the infighting in the Congress government of that time, with chief minister Sudhakarrao Naik and union defence minister Sharad Pawar indulging in a political tug-of-war, which delayed the induction of the army to control mob violence.

The commission's report on the communal riots and the serial bomb blasts of March 12, 1993, and the action taken report (ATR) were presented in the state assembly today by chief minister Manohar Joshi and by the deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde in thestate council. Both Joshi and Munde said that the state government had rejected the key findings of the commission, dubbing it as "biased and anti-Hindu."

In a speech marred by frequent interruptions by a noisy opposition, Joshi said the state government did not agree with several recommendations of the commission as they had been written with a "vengeance". He said: "This government has no hesitation in condemning some portions of the report, and we are rejecting the report outright," Joshi said, adding, however, that some of the suggestions on modernisation and streamlining the police force would, however, be accepted. Stating that the report did not suggest "even a single thing which could act as a bridge to improve ties between Hindus and Muslims," Joshi said his government was rejecting the "biased, anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim" report. The commission's report strongly criticised the Shiv Sena's role. It said: "The attitude of the Shiv Sena, as reflected in a Time interview given by Thackeray, and itsdoctrine of "retaliation," as expounded by Sarpotdar and Joshi, together with the thinking of Sainiks that Sena's terror was the true guarantee of the citizens safety, were responsible for the Sainiks vigilantism. Because some criminal Muslims killed innocent Hindus in one corner of the city, the Shiv Sainiks "retaliated" against several innocent Muslims in other corners of the city."

"On January 4, 1993, a big mob of Hindus led by Gajanan Kirtikar, Ramesh More and other Shiv Sena activists took a morcha to the Jogeshwari (a north-west Mumbai suburb) police station complaining about the lack of security for Hindus. Some of the people in the morcha attacked Chacha Nagar Masjid and the Muslims in the vicinity and injured them. Several Muslim huts in Magdum Nagar in Mahim jurisdiction were set on fire by Hindus.

"The built-in bias of the police force against Muslims became more pronounced with murderous attacks on the constabulary and officers and manifested in their reluctance to firmly put down incidentsof violence, looting and arson which went on unchecked."

The chief minister criticised the commission saying that it had passed severe strictures against Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray "who strove to protect the lives of a community." Joshi decried the fact that the report "does not have even a word for those who conspired to destroy Mumbai through the serial bomb blasts."

"This report is one which will cause humiliation to Hindus in the whole country and we have no hesitation in rejecting it," Joshi said.

He also criticised the commission for objecting to certain slogans raised by Shiv Sainiks and other mobs like "mandir wahin banayenge" and "desh me rehna hoga to vande mataram kahna hoga."

The state government also did not agree with the commission's contention that the "Muslim community, sans any leadership and instigated by the demolition of the Babri masjid, had led to the initial round of riots in December 1992." Joshi said the riots were not spontaneous and and reiterated thatseveral of the conclusions drawn by the commission, specially with reference to the Shiv Sena, were "biased and prejudiced."

"For example, there is no proof to establish the commission's observation that some youths who reportedly went to some house in Antop Hill area (in Central Mumbai) disguised as Mhada (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority) employees in January 1993 were suspected Shiv Sainiks," he said.

The government also did not agree with the contention of the commission that some Marathi newspapers, mainly "Saamna" (the Sena mouthpiece) and "Navakal" had written inflammatory articles describing the killings of mathadi workers and the Radhabai Chawl killings, which led to the intensification of the second round of the riots in January 1993.

Joshi said that while holding the Marathi newspapers responsible for giving "exaggerated" accounts of incidents during the riots, the commission had "simply ignored the role played by Urdu newspapers. Even today, these Urdunewspapers continue to write perverted reports about the illness of the Sena chief," Joshi said, evoking cries of "shame, shame" from the treasury benches. The commission's observation that the Shiv Sainiks had intensified attacks on Muslims and their properties from January 8, 1993 was without any basis, the chief minister claimed.

The commission has observed that the police were biased against Muslims, and this was borne out by the disproportionately large number of Muslim deaths which took place. The commission was this as being the result of the police deliberately targeting and liquidating Muslims. The chief minister, however, disagreed with this observation. "The explanation of the commissioner of police that aggressive and violent mobs in the initial stages comprised Muslims and, therefore, Muslim casualties were higher does not appear to be as far-fetched as it has been made out by Muslims."

The commission has noted that though the police found their resources stretched, they were unwilling totake the help of the army for carrying out operational duties. "Army columns were used only to carry out flag marches which had little impact on the by now hardened and emboldened rioters."

The commission held intra-party squabbles between Pawar and Naik as being responsible for the worsening of the riots, "which could have been brought under control had there been no attempts at oneupmanship between the two leaders."

Adversely commenting on the then Congress government in power then, the commission has noted that an "effete political leadership, vacillation for political reasons and conflicting orders issued to the police commissioner percolated downwards to create a general sense of confusion in the lower ranks of the police." The state government accepted this part of the report without much ado.