BJP attacks Congress over 1984 anti-Sikh riots

New Delhi: A day after a Delhi court awarded death sentence to an accused and life imprisonment to another in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, the BJP on Wednesday said that it was the probe carried out by an SIT set up under the Modi government which led to the sentencing and accused the Congress of working to deny justice to the anti-Sikh riots victims to save its own people.

Asking the Congress to clarify its stand on the provocative statement of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that earth shook when a big tree fell and the BJP alleged that the then ruling party had condoned the organised violence against Sikhs.

The BJP also asked the Congress to answer as to what efforts it made during 24 years of its rule to give justice to Sikh families.

The Congress had welcomed the court’s verdict on Tuesday.saying the party’s stand is clear and a legal process must be allowed to work out its course.

“On behalf of BJP, I say with full responsibility that the available evidences clearly show that Congress party ensured in the last 35 years that no fair investigation or trial was allowed to take place to bring the culprits to book,” said senior BJP leader and Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Maintaining that the Indian society and particularly the Sikh community “wants a closure of the horrible memories of 1984,” Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said that “we owe to the victims that the other cases suggested by the SIT for investigation and prosecution be vigorously pursued and the same is being done.”

He said there are thousands of cases which require a similar punishment in 1980s itself and the period from 1984 to 1998 was one of cover-up.

In an article on his Facebook page, titled ‘The Legacy of 1984,’ Mr Jaitley said the year was “amongst the worst for Indian governance” and recounted how the the then PMO conspired to destablise the NC government in Jammu and Kashmir, which “proved to be catastrophic for the state” and how the then ruling party Congress allowed the “militancy in Punjab to go unchecked” and how those whom the Congress had created to counter the Sikh influence of Akali Dal had gone out of control. “ He said the Operation Bluestar proved to be a historic blunder, which succeeded in hurting the psyche of India’s most patriotic community and whose direct fallout was the assassination of the then PM.

The BJP said that the previous Congress governments had set up several committees to probe the riots only to delay justice. Mr Prasad said that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had constituted the Nanavati Commission, which had said the riots were organised and had also blamed the police, the next Congress led UPA government took no action on the reports findings.