Speaking at a public forum organised by Lok Raj Sangathan at the Constitution Club on 13th August, Kuldip Nayyar, H. S. Phulka, Vrinda Grover, Prof Bawa and several others condemned the denial of justice to the victims of the holocaust of November 1984. They called for the immediate arrest of those named in the Nanavati Commission. They declared that the Indian people will continue and escalate the struggle for justice. “We shall fight for the guilty to be punished, and for the creation of mechanisms to ensure that state organised communal massacres can never take place again”, said Prakash Rao, the convenor of the Lok Raj Sangathan. Questioning why political parties, police and administration who were involved in genocide cannot be held accountable in the present system, he pointed to the need to build defence organizations of the people at the local level and on a non-partisan basis.
Speakers at this forum pointed out that the guilty in this case were not only individuals in high places but also a political party with the state machinery at its command. If such a thing is to be prevented in future, then there is need for appropriate legislation and enforcing mechanisms to punish a political party and the police and administrative machinery that are guilty of such a crime. Speakers emphasized the need for the people to organize themselves and fight unitedly to implement the slogan “An attack on One is an attack on All!”.
The unanimous opinion expressed in the meeting was that, not only should we demand that those named in the Nanavati Commission Report be punished, we must also take concrete steps to prevent a future holocaust. Several suggestions such as demanding that the crimes be now investigated by the National Human Rights Commission, that the Delhi police and any of its branches such as the "riots cell" be not involved in any future investigations, constituting a committee of eminent persons with enough powers, forming an umbrella orgnisation of all human rights activists to get to find the truth, and the organising of people’s tribunals as people’s organs to demand and get justice, were mooted in the meeting. The introduction of the principle of “command responsibility” where those in power have to take responsibility for genocide committed by their subordinates, and the initiation of legislation leading to a Genocide Act, under which anyone committing crime can be punished, irrespective of position and power were also proposed.
The public forum was organised by the Lok Raj Sangathan on the theme "Peoples Action to Punish the Guilty of 1984". It was organised to involve all those who have been involved in the struggle to PUNISH the GUILTY ever since the gruesome genocide of the Sikh community in November ’84. It was organised to sum up the lessons of the struggle, the role of political parties and the state machinery in the organising of communal massacres, and to evolve a course of action to take the struggle to its logical conclusion — trial and punishment of all those guilty of organising communal massacres, whether they be political parties, governments, officials of the police and administrative machinery and so on.
Sucharita of the Lok Raj Sangathan and a long time activist in the women’s movement of Delhi conducted the proceedings. A galaxy of activists from the rights movement in Delhi and India, as well as leaders of political parties and groups, lawyers, journalists and women’s groups participated in the deliberations organised by the LRS. Among those who made contributions were Kuldip Nayyar, eminent journalist and Vice President of the Lok Raj Sangathan, Vrinda Grover, rights activist, H.S.Phulka, Advocate, Prof LN Bawa of Law Faculty, Delhi University, Prakash Rao, Convenor of LRS, activist Uma Chakravarti, Wing Cdr RC Chhatwal, well-known journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, PK Murthy of AIFTU, Jasvir Singh of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, Kamala Sankaran, Law Faculty of Delhi University, Rojesh and Noni, leaders of the Manipur Students Association of Delhi, Bijju Nayak, Prime Minister of the Hind Naujavan Ekta Sabha, activists Vimala and Raghavan, and many others.