AAP urges to open all 232 anti-Sikh riot cases

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 17

The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday demanded that all 232 anti-Sikh riot cases, including those involving Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath and another Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, be reopened and Congress president Rahul Gandhi remove them and Sajjan Kumar from the party.

Hours after Sajjan Kumar’s conviction by the Delhi High Court hailing the life sentence, the AAP blamed successive governments at the Centre led by Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party which also had Shiromani Akali Dal as its ally from 1998-2004 for the delay of 34 years.

Former AAP legislator Jarnail Singh said it took really long for this day to come and a timely verdict in 1984 Sikh massacre could have prevented the mass killings in Mumbai (1993), Gujarat (2002), Odisha’s Kandhamal district (2008) and Muzaffarnagar in UP (2013), among others.

Jarnail alleged Congress veteran Nath, who is named in another case of Sikh killings outside Rakab Ganj Gurdwara should not have been made the CM and Gandhi should immediately expel them. Tytler is facing prosecution over the attack on Gurdwara Pul Bangash.

“In 2008, when the CBI gave a clean chit to both Kumar and Tytler, I protested and finally in 2010, a chargesheet was filed by it after 26 years. In 2013, five persons were convicted but Kumar escaped punishment...,” said Jarnail, whose two family members were injured in the 1984 riots.

“If the culprits of the 1984 genocide, which is said as mother of all mob lynchings would have been punished, then it would have sent a strong message to all the perpetrators of such horrific mass crimes,” he said.

In November 1984, in Delhi alone, 2,733 Sikhs and nearly 3,350 all over the country were brutally murdered, as per official estimates.

AAP MLA Jagdeep Singh, who lost his father in the 1984 riots, said “Justice after 34 years is justice denied notwithstanding it gives hope that eventually perpetrators will be punished.”

‘Gujarat riots had the patronage of BJP govt’

Sharing excerpts from the HC judgement, AAP Delhi spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said the HC has clearly said the 1984 anti-Sikh riots were entirely state-sponsored to target a particular community and Congress misused the state machinery is no hidden truth.

Bharadwaj alleged, "The court has in a way said how like Congress’ role in 1984 riots, the BJP too is responsible for killing Muslims in the 2002 riots in Gujarat."

He noted the HC’s reference to a pattern of mass killings since partition days drawing a parallel among them when it said common among these mass massacres was the “targeting of minorities” and attacks spearheaded by dominant political actors being facilitated by law enforcement agencies.

In 2013, AAP first announced setting up a SIT to probe the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases. In its second stint, the AAP-led Delhi Assembly on June 30, 2015 passed a resolution stating 1984 riots were genocide and all pending cases be reopened.