Anti-Sikh riot report stirs storm in India: Parliament session disrupted
NEW DELHI, Aug 9: India’s parliament was disrupted on Tuesday as rival lawmakers clashed over a report on anti-Sikh riots in 1984 which named ruling Congress party leaders in connection with the violence in which nearly 3,000 Sikhs died. Opposition lawmakers want the government to take action against a junior minister, Jagdish Tytler, who the report said may have instigated rioters after then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984.
But the Congress-led coalition government headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, himself a Sikh, said it would take no action against Tytler as the panel had found no conclusive evidence against him. Tytler has denied the charges.
The inquiry report by retired judge G.T. Nanavati, which was presented in parliament on Monday, probed one of India’s worst religious riots, which broke out across the north of the country after Indira Gandhi was assassinated on Oct 31, 1984. Media reports and human rights groups say the Congress party — which was ruling the country at the time in 1984 — had a hand in organizing the killings, a charge denied by the party.
On Tuesday, opposition deputies — including members of a small Sikh party — demanded an immediate debate on the report in the lower house, but the speaker said a time for such discussions must first be agreed upon.
Speaker Somnath Chatterjee adjourned the house until Wednesday. The upper house was also adjourned over the report.
SIKH PROTESTERS: Anger spilled on to the streets of the Indian capital where dozens of Sikh protesters shouted “hang the killers” in a noisy demonstration against the Congress party in which they complained that the report had been watered down.
The report said Delhi’s police were passive spectators to the killing of Sikhs for over three days.
The demonstrators also slammed Singh, saying he had betrayed his own community. “He has done nothing for the Sikhs. He is just a Congress puppet,” said Sattu Singh, a mattress maker, who lost his mother and brother in the riots.
The government has said it would investigate whether legal action could be taken against another Congress leader, Dharam Das Shastri, who is also accused of instigating riots.
Analysts said the uproar in parliament was an embarrassment for the government, but posed no threat to its survival.—Reuters
