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."