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Indian Parliament forced to
discuss Genocide of Sikhs
New Revelation: CBI has asked for govt nod to prosecute Tytler,
Sajjan Kumar
WSN Bureau
 NEW
DELHI: Shamed into making a statement on the floor of the Parliament
after an Independent Sikh MP, Tarlochan Singh, pressed a Calling
Attention Motion in Rajya Sabha, the Indian Government conceded that
25 years after the anti-Sikh massacres in Delhi and elsewhere, the
CBI has actually sought permission for prosecution of Congress
leaders Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar for their role in the
genocidal killings.
India's Home
Minister P. Chidambaram was pushed into making the statement after a
groundswell of raging storm on the issue following CBI's earlier
determined efforts to let Tytler, a former Union Minister, off the
hook, a move that had enraged a Sikh journalist Jarnail Singh to
fling a shoe across his face at a press conference, triggering
massive anger among the Sikhs against Congress.
Chidambaram
tried to duck the responsibility by claiming that not he but Delhi's
Lt. Governor Tejendra Khanna was the "competent authority to take a
decision" on the CBI's plea for prosecution but did not touch the
political aspect of the debate as to why the Congress was repeatedly
giving top positions in the party and government over the years to
leaders accused of leading blood thirsty mobs and instigating and
carrying out killings of Sikhs.
Tytler was
forced to resign from the earlier Manmohan Singh government after a
government-appointed Commission found his involvement in the pogrom
of Sikhs.
Tarlochan Singh
minced no words in comparing the genocide of the Sikhs to the
holocaust in which Jews were persecuted by the Nazis. "What's the
difference?" he shouted as stunned Congress benches watched.
Chindambaram
then told Parliament that his government would advise the Lt
Governor of Delhi to take a decision by month-end on the CBI
application seeking permission for the prosecution of Tytler and
Sajjan Kumar.
"The CBI has
completed investigation/reinvestigation of seven cases registered
against Tytler, Kumar and Dharam Das Shastri (now dead). It has
sought permission to prosecute the accused in four cases," said the
minister.
With egg on the
face and possibly memories of Jarnail Singh's shoe headed in his
direction, Chidambaram admitted "inaction" during the last 25 years
and blamed it on legal hurdles saying a law should have been made to
ensure that the guilty were not let off the hook.
The action
against Delhi Police personnel for dereliction of duty has been
"most unsatisfactory," Chidambaram said, during a five-hour
debate."In the last 25 years, the delinquent persons who got away
with no punishment is the police," he replied to the motion moved by
MP Tarlochan Singh.
Leader of
Opposition Arun Jaitley said, "What happened in 1984 was not a
'riot'. It was a state-sponsored massacre of innocents. It was a
revenge killing of thousands with the active connivance of the
state." Shiromani Akali Dal Leader Naresh Gujral said his father I.K.
Gujral and others had met then Home Minister Narasimha Rao and
"begged him to call the Army". "The Army was not called. It just
waited for permission, 20 kilometer on the outskirts of Delhi," he
added.
He asked the
Home Minister to permit the CBI to prosecute all those named by the
Nanavati Commission, which probed the 1984 riots, within three days.
CPI (M) leader
Brinda Karat hailed the work of activist lawyer H.S.Phoolka on the
floor of Parliament and said many persons killed were reported as
missing and their families did not get any compensation. She said
when the Congress regime displayed a lack of political will to save
the Sikhs, the then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu had dared
anyone who attacked the Sikh community in the state and therefore
there was no riot.
16
December 2009
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