1984 anti-Sikh riot victims’ kin allege Punjab govt apathy

The president of 1984 anti-Sikh Riots Victim Welfare Society, Surjit Singh, and women’s wing president Bibi Gurdeep Kaur addressed a press conference and raised concerns regarding the ongoing mistreatment of the 1984 riot-affected families during the tenure of the Mann-led government in the state.

They pointed out that when the Akali-BJP government was in power, and as per the decisions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, it had been decided that all families holding red cards would be provided homes within a year by the Punjab Government. Furthermore, riot-affected families were to be allotted booths for business and youths from these families were to be given employment opportunities.

Contrary to these promises, 135 red cards—issued in 2010—had been cancelled without any reason having been stated. Additionally, government officials were reportedly preparing to recover Rs 2 lakh in grant that had been provided to the victim families by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Despite the passage of three years since the AAP assumed power, the victims claimed that their demands had been constantly ignored. Whenever representatives tried to meet the Chief Minister or raise their voices, they were allegedly attacked with batons and the police misbehaved with women members of the organisation, claimed members of the society.

As a result of the mistreatment being meted out to the families, members said they had decided to actively oppose the Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate, Sanjeev Arora, in the upcoming Ludhiana West byelection. Since a large number of these victim families reside in the Ludhiana West constituency, they will begin a door-to-door outreach on Wednesday, starting at Gurdwara Dhan Dhan Baba Deep Singh Ji, urging residents not to vote for Arora and to defeat the AAP candidate.

Gurdev Singh (chairman), Daljit Singh Soni, Amarjeet Singh Rajpal, Manmohan Singh Haibowal, Sukhdev Singh Jamalpur, Gurdeep Singh Kahloon (Jamalpur), Inderpal Singh, Satnam Singh, Harpal Singh and

others were present at the press conference.