1984KILLING S OF3000 SIKHSIN DELHI

BY GOONDAS OFRAJIVGANDHI

Thursday November 1 2007

THE KILLING OF SIKHS IN NEW DELHI, BYTHE GOONDAS OF RAJIV GANDHI IS BEING

CELEBRATED BY THE CONGRESSMENUNDER SONIA GANDI TODAY AS TODAY IS

THE 23RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE MASSMURDER OF SIKHS IN DELHI.

A new book ‘When A Tree Shook Delhi’, by Manoj Mittaand HS Phoolka’ levels serious charges against topCongress leaders implicated in the riots. November 1, 1984, amassacre began. Over 3,000 Sikhs were hacked to death. Butthe police and the Government looked the other way.Commission after Commission whitewashes the guilt of theaccused. Now 23 years later a new book nails the guilty inchilling detail.

Among the accused - Kamal Nath, now Union Minister forCommerce, he led the mob outside Gurudwara Rakab Ganj,where two Sikhs were roasted alive, in the immediate vicinity ofthe Lok sabha. Amod Kanth (now Chief Vigilance officer, DelhiJal Board) abetted mass crime against a single Sikh by makinga victim out to be an aggressor.

Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler and Dharma Dass Shastri,Congress leaders led mobs and forced the police to releaserioters. Nikhil Kumar now Congress MP from Aurangabad,failed to pass on information in time, said at the time, he wasonly a guest artist and press fellows were exaggerating.

Author Mitta says, “Much worse than Gujarat, right in the heartof the Capital, not just mobs but influential congress leaders.No justice till now.'' The Congress, ever ready to accuse thejustice process in the Gujarat riots, feels that justice has beendone to the victims of 1984.

Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi says, “Wehave atoned, prime minister was apologised.” Four hundredSikhs were butchered here alone in Block 32 of Trilokpuri, The

killings were discovered by journalists. According to the book,if they had not come here the police would have kept thehorrifying incidents at Trilokpuri a secret.

Approximately 1000 died n Gujarat, three times that numberperished in 1984. So far only 13 have been punished.

Justice G.T. Nanavati's inquiry report on the butchery of Sikhsis utter garbage. All the killers are roaming freely. Thereport 349 pages, plus the Action Taken Reportpresented by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh'sgovernment in Parliament on August 8.2005. There arebroad hints about the involvement of Congress leaderslike H.K.L. Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler, Dharam DassShastri and Sajjan Kumar. He gives them the benefit ofthe doubt and suggests yet another inquiry commissionto look into the charges against them. First, thegovernment took its own sweet time to put the reporton the table of the House, waiting till the last dayallotted to it for doing so. Union home minister ShivrajPatil had assured the House when the report had beensubmitted to him six months earlier that thegovernment had nothing to hide. However, he hid it tillhe could hide it no more.

Action Taken Report is aimed at the policemen nowretired from service and hence no longer liable fordisciplinary action. In 1984 northern India down toKarnataka witnessed a bloodbath the likes of which thecountry had not experienced since Independence norafter. In Delhi, over 3,000 Sikhs were murdered, theirwives and daughters gangraped, their propertieslooted, 72 gurudwaras burnt down. The all-India total ofcasualties was close to 10,000, the loss of propertyover thousands of crores. What triggered off the

holocaust was the assassination of Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi. On the morning of October 31, 1984, shewas assassinated by two of her Sikh security guards.As the news of her death spread, rampaging mobs ofCongressmen goondas of Rajiv Gandhi, shoutingkhoon ka badla khoon se lenge (we will avenge bloodwith blood), armed with cans of petrol, matchboxes andlathis set upon Sikhs they met on the roads - easilyidentifiable because of their distinct appearance - andset them on fire. Sikh-owned shops and homes wereattacked and looted. Most of this mayhem and murdertook place in Congress-ruled states.

Rajiv Gandhi, who flew in from Calcutta with his cousinand confidant Arun Nehru, was quickly sworn in asprime minister by Zail Singh without consulting otherministers or chief ministers of states. Rajiv was busyreceiving foreign dignitaries coming to attend hismother's funeral.

Days later, THE BOFORS CHOR RAJIV GANDHI in hisfirst public speech, he exonerated the murderers: Whathe said will shame any human being. Rajiv said 'Whena big tree falls, the earth beneath it is bound to shake.'He meant to take no action in the matter and retainedmen named as leaders of mobs in his cabinet. Homeminister Narasimha Rao did not stir out of his house.When a few eminent Sikhs approached him, he listenedto them in studied silence. He remained, as he alwayswas, the paradigm of masterly inactivity. With the threemen at the top refusing to do their duty, little could beexpected from the Lt. Governor of Delhi or the policecommissioner.

Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code, forbiddinggatherings of more than five people, was notpromulgated or enforced; no curfew was imposed, noshoot-at-sight order given. A unit of the army wasbrought in from Meerut but when it was discovered thatthey were Sikhs, it was ordered to stay in thecantonment and not meddle with the civic unrest. Theonly word I could think of using for the way theauthorities carried out its duties? Downrightdisgusting. It was like spitting in the face of alldemocratic institutions. However, there were citizens'organisations which refused to allow a crime of thismagnitude to go uninvestigated and unpunished.Leading them were Dr. Rajni Kothari and Justice(retired) V.M. Tarkunde. Kothari's report, Who Are theGuilty?, named men like H.K.L. Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler,Sajjan Kumar, Dharam Dass Shastri - all M.P.s andleaders of the Delhi municipality amongst leaders ofgoonda [hoodlum] gangs. None of those named tookthese men or organisations to court for criminal libel.When Jagdish Tytler claimed that none of thecommissions of inquiry implicated him in the anti-Sikhviolence, he was lying. You can see it in the smirk on hissatanic face. Only governmental commissions let himoff the hook. More important than Kothari andTarkunde's findings were those of the non-officialcommission of inquiry set up under retired chief justiceof the Supreme Court, S.M. Sikri. Comprising retiredambassadors, governors and senior civil servants(none of them a Sikh), the commission castigated thegovernment in no uncertain terms. The governmentcould not ignore its verdict. Ultimately, Rajiv Gandhitook the Sikh problem in his own hands. He appointedArjun Singh governor of Punjab to make contacts with

Akali leaders in jails. They were released in smallbatches to create a favourable atmosphere. Secretnegotiations with Sant Harchand Singh Longowal werestarted. Zail Singh, Buta Singh and others were kept inthe dark. On July 24, 1985, the Rajiv Longowal Accordwas signed. Amongst other items, it provided for aninquiry commission into the incidents of violence ofNovember 1984.

Justice Ranganath Mishra of the Supreme Court wasappointed as a one-man commission. 'OperationWhitewash' had begun. Before Mishra was half-waythrough, the panel of lawyers representing victims ofthe holocaust led by Soli Sorabjee expressed its lack ofconfidence in the learned judge's impartiality andwithdrew from the commission. Mishra went ahead andsubmitted his findings to the government. As expected,he held the Lt. Governor and the police commissionerof Delhi guilty of dereliction of duty. It must haveoccurred to him that neither of the two could haveacted the way they did without the instructions ofhigher-ups, including the prime minister or someoneacting on his behalf or the home minister. Rajiv Gandhiwas himself a party to the anti-Sikh pogrom.

Rajiv Gandhi was allowing it to go Sikh pogrom for twodays and nights till his mother's funeral was over.Behind it was his message: 'Teach the Sikhs a lesson.'No commission of inquiry, official or non-official, haslooked into the role of this sinister character RajivGandhi.

A few salutary lessons that the experience has taughtus should be kept in mind by our leaders. The most

important is to understand that crimes unpunishedbreed criminals. Another equally important thing tobear in mind is that the State must never abdicate itsmonopoly of punishing criminals, if it overlooks its dutyor delays dispensing justice beyond limits ofendurance, it encourages aggrieved parties to take thelaw in their own hands and settle scores with those whowronged them. This situation is already prevalentthroughout in India with respect to the muslim terroristattacks in Temples, trains and all crowded marketplaces that the state and central governments areunable to stop. We are just waiting for the muslimpogrom throughout India very soon because of the factthat muslims in India are largely responsible for allthese bomb blasts in India against Hindus. This muslimpogrom will arrive sooner than later as the statemachineries are unable to stop the muslim terrorism.We have not learned the lessons so far and India willhave more holocausts like the pogrom of muslims in theyears to come.

Jasbir Singh was a key eyewitness in the 1984 anti-Sikh riot.He is willing to testify against Jagdish Tytler a prominentCongress leader who was a Rajiv Gandhi’s Goonda. CentralBureau of Investigation had exonerated Jagdish Tytler of allcharges in 1984 anti-Sikh carnage. Jasbir said that he hadheard Tytler rebuking his followers, ‘I had promised large-scalekillings of Sikhs to Rajiv Gandhi, but¦ you have betrayed me andlet me down in the eye of Rajiv Gandhi. My position has beencompromised in the eyes of the Central Leaders. Look at EastDelhi and Outer Delhi constituencies of H K L Bhagat andSajjan Kumar, there have been such large-scale killings ascompared to my constituencies’. Jasbir Singh had submittedaffidavits against Tytler in all the Commissions that wereconstituted to look into the 1984 riots. He said that he wasthreatened after he had refused to retract his statement

against Tytler. He had to flee India in order to protect himselfbut he continues to worry about his family which is still in India.He said that he feels that only United States of America canprovide safety and freedom to him and his family.