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| Don’t rub salt on wounds | | | Jagdish Tytler has finally pulled out of the Lok Sabha elections and this must have come as a soother for hundreds and thousands of Sikhs nursing the wounds of 1984 riots. The hurling of a shoe at Union Home Minister P Chidambaram by a journalist at a press conference on Tuesday was an offensive and uncivilised act deserving of strong condemnation. It was highly unprofessional of a journalist to express his personal sentiments in such a manner. The support extended to him by various Sikh organisations and groups is also wrong. But disapproval of the journalist’s action should not make anybody insensitive to the continuing grievance of the Sikh community about the failure of the country to mete out punishment to the perpetrators of the crimes against the Sikhs after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. It is not just the Sikhs who are aggrieved; anybody who has a sense of justice would be disappointed that even after 25 years, hardly anybody has been brought to book for the anti-Sikh riots which devastated Delhi for three days in 1984. The matter again came into focus with the CBI’s clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, who is widely believed to have been involved in the attacks on Sikhs. The investigative agency filed a report with a Delhi magistrate last week seeking cancellation of the FIR against him on the ground that the statement of a key witness in California was unreliable. The CBI report will be considered as yet another proof of the widely held notion that it does only what the government wants it to do. The role of Tytler in instigating and leading the riots was confirmed by two inquiry commissions, including the Nanavati Commission. He had resigned from the cabinet after he was named by the Nanavati Commission. Tytler and another Congress leader, Sajjan Kumar, who was also allegedly involved in the riots, have been named as Congress candidates from two Delhi constituencies. It will be wrong if the Congress fields these two tainted politicians as its representatives. The CBI’s certificate carries no credibility. It will be taken as only a stage-managed action to whitewash Tytler’s record. The Congress does not tire of pointing out the role of the BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders in the Gujarat riots of 2002 against Muslims. The record of some Congress leaders in the Delhi riots against Sikhs is equally shameful but the party has tried to shield them. To allow them to continue their association with the party amounts to promoting and encouraging them. The shoe thrown at Chidambaram is a reminder to the party of the sense of gross injustice people nurture over this. It also represents the people’s lack of trust in the country’s premier investigative agency.
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