The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a public interest litigation that sought a rehabilitation scheme for the survivors of the 1983 Nellie massacre in Assam as well as a reassessment of the compensation already given, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta allowed the petitioners to withdraw the petition and told them to approach the High Court instead.

The massacre took place on February 18, 1983, in Assam’s Morigaon district. Around 1,800 persons, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims, were killed in the violence.

Advocate Warisha Farasat, appearing for the petitioners, had argued that the compensation awarded was very small. She said most petitioners were poor farmers who had been left without support for decades, Bar and Bench reported.

Farasat also told the bench that the delay since the violence had only worsened the injustice faced by the affected families.

The petition also added that the families lost relatives and property in the massacre. They received a token amount of Rs 5,000 as compensation for each family member who died. Two relatives of the petitioners, who suffered bullet injuries, received a sum of Rs 1,500 each, Live Law quoted the petition as saying.

The court, however, declined to take up the petition.

Nellie massacre

The Nellie massacre took place in February 1983 after the Assam Agitation had been launched by the All Assam Students Union in 1979. They had demanded that undocumented immigrants be identified and deported from Assam.

The agitation resulted in several episodes of violence, with the most prominent being the massacre in Nellie village. Within six hours, agitators had killed around 1,800 people, mostly Muslims. Unofficial accounts say that about 3,000 persons were killed.

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