’84 riots: 1,020 to get Rs 2 lakh

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 3

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today approved Rs 2 lakh as compensation to each of more than 1,000 Sikh families, who migrated to Punjab from different parts of the country in the wake of the 1984 riots. The sanction is part of a Centrally-sponsored scheme for rehabilitation of anti-Sikh riot victims.

According to a Home Ministry official, the minister has approved the money to be given to 1,020 families after “reopening of the scheme for providing rehabilitation grant of Rs 2 lakh to each of them”, who had migrated to Punjab from Delhi and other parts of the country following the riots.

He, however, informed that the scheme is being reopened “only for a limited period of six months” from the date of sanctioning of the scheme.

The move came following a recommendation of Justice (retd) GP Mathur Committee, which was set up by the Narendra Modi government in December 2014 to look into various grievances related to the 1984 riots.

The government has also approved the recommendation of the committee to provide skill and upgrading of skill for members of such families.

The recommendation is being forwarded to the Ministry of Skill Development and Punjab government with a request to formulate scheme in this regard, the official said.

Following assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, anti-Sikh riots took place in Delhi and other places.

Altogether 3,325 people were killed in the riots. Of them, Delhi alone accounted for 2,733 deaths and the rest deaths were in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and other states.