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How many witnesses the CBI needs
to put Sajjan Kumar behind bars?
 Chandigarh:
The sun is about to set on the first day of the new decade and it’s
his mother Jaspal Kaur’s birthday, but Harvinder Singh Kohli has not
found time even to sit with her. But, the lady is not upset, as her
son is busy with more important matters — taking on demons of the
past.
Since morning,
the 50-year-old businessman has been talking to media and shooting
off letters to CBI and the Delhi government, ever since he has heard
about the permission granted by the Delhi Lt Governor to prosecute
Congress leader Sajjan Kumar.
Sitting in his
small, but comfortable house in Dera Bassi, on the border of Punjab
and Haryana, surrounded by his family — wife, two daughters and
the mother,
Kohli is hopeful once again, even though the wounds of 1984 have
been refreshed.
“After 25 years,
the sanction has come as a significant development, although, it may
also end the same way like many others before it -- inconclusively.
But we would continue to demand that the CBI arrest and ensures
punishment to Sajjan Kumar,” says the man, who saw the then MP
allegedly goading a mob to kill and loot Sikh families in Gulab
Bagh, Nawada in Delhi, in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s death.
Kohli lost his
50-year old father, Sohan Singh and sister’s husband,
Avtar Singh to
the mob’s frenzied fury. “I have repeatedly approached the CBI to
record my statement against Kumar, only to be turned back on grounds
that they did not have the sanction to prosecute Kumar,” recalls
Kohli.
“We don’t want
any money or compensation, just give us justice.”
The violence is
still fresh in his mind. “1 saw the mob first beating Sikh men
senselessly and then throwing them into burning trucks, In the
presence of Saijan Kumar on November 1. My father was also injured,
but we all managed to hide on that day. The next day the mob
attacked again and killed my father and brother in law. They also
broke my upper limbs, and I was covered in blood, when they prepared
to burn us all,” Kohli shudders.
The police did
not help him and he could reach a hospital only a day later with the
help of his employers. His four sisters and younger brother were
saved by neighbors who dressed the boy in girls’ clothes and made
plaits of his long hair. Their injured mother was located in a
nursing home, five days after the riots. The widowed sister was left
holding a 27-day old baby.
Mourning their
loss, they arrived in Amritsar to start afresh, but the ordeal did
not end here.
He found success
in business in Mohali but was losing all hopes of justice, when a
meeting with a fellow victim — their neighbour in
Delhi
— shook him up in 2008. Kohli was shocked into silence when he saw
bed-ridden, Gurcharan Singh Balongi, nursing his wounds for the past
24 years.
“He was thrown
into a burning truck in front of my own eyes. His wounds never
healed and he could never move again. Ever since that day, I see my
own father and brother-in-law in my dreams who tell me, 'We are dead
and gone, we can’t fight for justice. You should not fail us.' It is
my life’s resolve now to see their killers behind bars."
6
January 2010
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