NEW DELHI – Former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal onMonday launched a scathing attack on the Congress party citing a recentstatement by former Union minister and Congress leader Jagdish Tytlerlink> in connection with the 1984anti-Sikh riots link>.
The Akali Dal leader has alleged that then prime minister Rajiv Gandhilink> was “supervising thekillings”, Zee New has reported.
“Jagdish Tytler has revealed that Rajiv Gandhi travelled with him acrossthe city in 1984. It means that the then PM was supervising the killings,”said Badal.
He further said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) must lookinto the information revealed by Tytler as it is a “very serious issue”.
This came after media reports quoted Tytler as saying that former primeminister Rajiv Gandhi had gone to different parts of Delhi while the riotswere on and was angry with MPs from the Congress party as they were told bythe party high command to contain the situation.
Notably, earlier this month, the Supreme Court constituted a new SpecialInvestigation Teamlink>(SIT)to re-investigate 186 1984-anti-Sikh riot cases that followed theassassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Retired justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra has been named the head of the SIT.Retired IAS officer Rajdeep Singh and IPS officer Avishek Dullar are theother two members of the committee that would re-investigate the cases.
The committee has been directed to file an interim report within two monthsin the Supreme Court.
A total of 3,325 people were killed in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana,Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and other states in the riots after IndiraGandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Delhialone accounted for 2,733 deaths.
The 1984 anti-Sikh riots are considered one of the most violent cases ofcommunal hatred after the partition in 1947.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its 2011 World Report stated, “Thegovernment has yet to prosecute those responsible for the mass killings ofSikhs that followed the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhiby her Sikh bodyguards. Delivery of justice for mass violence againstMuslims in Mumbai in 1992-93 and in Gujarat in 2002 has been slow.”