Police start action over decade-old sikh massacre
Police start action over decade-old sikh massacre
By M.R. Narayan Swamy
NEW DELHI (AFP): Nearly 10 years after almost 3,000 Sikhs were murdered here following the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi, the police are beginning to move against those responsible for the massacre.
The New Delhi police registered cases of murder and arson against an unspecified number of suspects, including members of the ruling Congress party, after years of dilly-dallying.
A Sikh lawyer called it the first significant step in a decade to bring to book the murderers of 2,733 Sikh men and women by Hindu mobs in four days after two Sikh bodyguards shot dead Indira Gandhi on Oct. 31, 1984.
"At last the wheels of justice have started moving," said Harvinder Singh Phoolka, an activist attorney who has been championing the cause of justice for the victims of the Sikh pogrom.
"It gives hope that no one is above the law," he added.
Phoolka was referring to the alleged involvement of leaders of the Congress party of Premier P.V. Narasimha Rao in the massacre --the worst carnage of its kind since India's independence in 1947.
Mobs armed with swords, crowbars and petrol bombs virtually took over New Delhi after the Gandhi assassination, burning and looting Sikh homes and shops, and butchering their residents while the police stood by.
Nearly a decade later, not a single killer has been punished. In hundreds of murders, the police have not even filed cases. Sikh leaders say the authorities' disinterest borders on apathy.
One reason has been the alleged involvement of high-ranking Congress party officials in instigating and leading mobs against Sikh in 1984.
Two Congress party leaders have been widely accused by Sikhs of taking part in the pogrom. Both have denied involvement but are guarded around-the-clock by elite commandos.
At least two Congress party politicians, including a son-in- law of President Shankar Dayal Sharma, alleged by independent citizen's groups to have taken part in the massacre, have been assassinated by Sikh separatists.
Until now, 40 suspects involved in some 200 killings have been acquitted by courts because of lack of adequate evidence, while 15 men sentenced to death in three murders are out on bail.
The Congress party has been ruling India almost continuously since 1984, barring a 19-month-period, and has been accused of showing little interest in moving against those responsible for the killings.
In November 1993, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People's Party) came to power in the city of New Delhi, and vowed to take action against those taking part in the massacre, a pledge welcomed by many Sikhs.
"Some cases were registered earlier too, but there was no political will to follow up," said a Sikh trader, Sukhdev Singh. "Now with the BJP at the helm of affairs, there is hope."
"The party in power then and now is protecting the guilty," said Phoolka. "To many who had expected justice, the faith in (the) judicial system has evaporated. It has been very frustrating."
The Indian government ordered six investigations into the slaughter of the Sikhs, including one which indicted 72 policemen and suggested the dismissal of six officers. The inquiry has been ignored.
"So little has been done in the last 10 years that a firm conviction has grown that the perpetrators of the crime will never be brought to book," the Times of India newspaper said in an editorial.
"Frankly, at this distant date, not much can be done to hand down to the guilty the type of punishment they deserve," added The Tribune.
"We are determined to bring all the killers to book no matter who they are," declared New Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana.
But not all Sikhs are hopeful.
"All this is a drama," said Ajit Singh, a transport worker. "Nothing will come out of it. Sikhs have lost hope in the judiciary... No member of the Congress will ever get punished."