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Sikh organisations decide to
pursue “untraced” cases of 1984 carnage
WSN Network
 CHANDIGARH: At
least two organisations of the Sikh community and some lawyers have
taken upon themselves the task of pursuing the cases related to the
November 1984 anti-Sikh carnage, pending in various courts across
the country. Public Interest Litigations would also be filed to seek
re-investigation of such cases that had been reported as “untraced”
or those which had not been probed at all for the last 25 years.
The New York
based advocacy groups, Sikhs for Justice and the All-India Sikh
Students’ Federation (AISSF) have claimed carrying out a year-long
exercise of collecting data and identifying affected families and
witnesses from 12 States where the Sikhs were targeted by mobs after
the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
According to
information collected under the provisions of the RTI Act, police
records show that while 935 Sikhs were killed, only 40 convictions
were effected in 1491 cases of killings and destroying property.
Another 33 cases were still pending.
The standing
counsel for the Sikhs for Justice, Navkiran Singh, who has collected
most information, told reporters over the weekend that of the 1491
cases across Delhi, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttarakhand, West Bengal,
Bihar and Haryana, 660 were reported as untraced or cancelled.
In the 10
districts of Delhi, where 800 Sikhs were reported to have been
killed by the mobs, 153 of the 416 cases were declared untraced,
while only 21 cases resulted in conviction of the accused.
Navkiran Singh
also came out with a revelation that while the information gathered
from various police stations showed that 800 persons were killed in
Delhi, a communication from the Union Ministry accepted that 2733
Sikhs were killed in the national capital alone, while the total
number of deaths across the country was 3323.
The
communication accepted that apart from
Delhi,
anti-Sikh violence was reported from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya
Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh,
Maharashtra,
Orissa, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Jammu and
Kashmir.
The Sikhs for
Justice have decided to set up a proper office in Chandigarh, to
pursue the matter to its logical conclusion.
It has also
sought information regarding the financial relief provided to the
victims as well as seek detailed information regarding the
discrepancies in the figures provided by the Home Ministry and the
police records.
9
September 2009
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