Dilip 5

...5. Enormous challenge to state machinery. Unlike personal crimes with a small crime scene (possibly B&R kind about which I don't know, & it'd be nice if you could provide a link) or a typical terrorist attack, riots are spread over huge areas. State has to prioritize between controlling mobs using police force or instead ask them to go, collect evidence!

6. Rescue/rehabilitation interfere with investigations. This holds true of both terrorist attacks & riots. Both the processes (rescue & rehabilitation) result in alteration in crime scene & destruction of evidence.

7. Misrepresentations by the media. While obviously, it does not contribute to inaction against suspects, it can make us wrongly believe that certain people were not punished despite sufficient evidence. In few riot cases (not all), it is truly possible that despite best efforts, sufficient evidence could not be collected & hence suspects would not be chargesheeted or court would acquit them. But media would not report these subtleties. All they'd report would be 'X' committee had found 'Y' person guilty. Think, in post-Godhra riots, Hindus had killed (~750) Muslims & Muslims had killed (~170) Hindus (if official figures are believed, & subtracting those killed by police action). All the prominent accused whose names today I know are Hindus. If media coverage &/or investigating agencies were completely reliable, would have I also not known names of a few Muslim suspects - those who would be responsible for killing of 170 Hindus? Obviously killing of Hindus would've also left similar evidence as Muslims' killing. I'm not saying 'cuz of this, those found suspect must not be tried, but just pointing out that we can't afford to base our conclusions on media reports with complete conviction (based on which we'd determine the degree of subversion of justice).

Now, of the above 7 points, I can be reasonably outraged by points 1, 4 & 7. But on a personal level, I am much more worried about basic reasons that have caused 1, 4 & 7 (deprivation & lack of values)! I'll return to that later.

"As for evidence of varying strength, the real problem I have is what's the relevance there."

I thought relevance is clear. I would expect someone to be more outraged in case where a stronger evidence is overlooked as compared to when a weaker evidence is overlooked! As former would be a greater insult to one's intelligence!...