Anger and outrage has poured onto Delhi streets over the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar on flimsy grounds in an 1984 anti-Sikh genocide case. Nirpreet Kaur, daughter of one of the victims who has courageously provided her eyewitness report of the accused leading murderous gangs, has been on an indefinite fast while thousands of people have been protesting in various parts of the city.
In 1984, right in the capital of our country, organized mobs led by the top leaders of the ruling Congress party, most brutally killed an estimated 7000 innocent people of the Sikh faith in the wake of the death of Indira Gandhi. They carried out masskidnapping and rape of hundreds of women and girls. The police top to bottom, with very few honourable exceptions, disarmed the Sikhs, and actively encouraged the massacre. The then Prime Minister of India, late Rajiv Gandhi, justified this genocide at a mass rally in Delhi two weeks later, saying "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes".
The Sessions Court which acquitted Sajjan Kumar gave him the “benefit of doubt” while pronouncing some of his henchmen as being guilty, based on the same evidence!
Till today, the state-sponsored communal massacre of 1984 is officially termed a “riot”. In this 29 year since that genocide was committed, none of theguilty who planned and organized it at the highest level has been punished by the judicial system. Justice has been denied and all investigations have been “fixed” to make sure that the truth does not
come out. At the fast venue, Nirpreet Kaur said the riot-affected families had expected that they would get justice but the verdict given by the court had "shaken" their faith in the system.
The Home Minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1984, Shri Narasimha Rao, was the Prime Minister in 1992 -1993 when the Babri Masjid was demolished, followed by large scale communal massacres in Surat, Mumbai and other places. BJP was in power in UP at that time, and it was in command in Gujarat during the anti-Muslim genocide of 2002.
In the past 30 years alone we have witnessed repeated genocides in Assam, from Nellie in 1983 to the massacre in 2012 in Kokrajhar. There have been sectarian violence against Tamils in Bengaluru and against Christian tribals in Orissa.
Lok Raj Sangathan has been consistently opposing all forms of state terrorism and communal persecution, demanding severe punishment for those guilty of organizing sectarian violence for narrow partisan ends, as well for those guilty of dereliction of responsibility to protect people’s lives. We have always believed that if the guilty of 1984 had been punished promptly and severely, it would have acted as a strong deterrant against subsequent genocides.
It is also our firm belief that increasing criminalization of politics in our country stems from the fact that the present system marginalizes people from political power. This is why Lok Raj Sangathan has been persistently fighting for a new political system and process wherein people will be empowered, political parties will be required to enable the people to rule; and parties that commit crimes against the people will have no space to exist.
Lok Raj Sangathan calls on all justice-loving people, organizations and political forces to continue their struggle to ensure punishment for those guilty of organising communal and sectarian violence, and for those in responsible command positions who participated in it or allowed it to happen. Let us advance our struggle for justice with the perspective of creating a new political process, where the people will be empowered to set the agenda and run the
affairs of society.
For the PDF of the statement, click the download link
