Author: Neha Seth
Publication: IBNLive.com
Date: November 1, 2007
URL: www.ibnlive.com/news/1984-book-recalls-the-carngage-india-forgot/51567-3.html?xml
Thursday is the twenty-third anniversary of
the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. Now a new book levels serious charges against
top Congress leaders implicated in the riots. The book, When A Tree Shook
Delhi, authored by journalist Manoj Mitta and lawyer HS Phoolka will be released
later this week.
November 1, 1984, a massacre began. Over 3,000
Sikhs were hacked to death. But the police and the Government looked the other
way. Commission after Commission whitewashes the guilt of the accused. Now
23 years later a new book nails the guilty in chilling detail.
Among the accused - Kamal Nath, now Union
Minister for Commerce, he led the mob outside Gurudwara Rakab Ganj, where
two Sikhs were roasted alive, in the immediate vicinity of the Lok sabha.
Amod Kanth (now Chief Vigilance officer, Delhi
Jal Board) abetted mass crime against a single Sikh by making a victim out
to be an aggressor.
Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler and Dharma Dass
Shastri, Congress leaders led mobs and forced the police to release rioters.
Nikhil Kumar now Congress MP from Aurangabad,
failed to pass on information in time, said at the time, he was only a guest
artist and press fellows were exaggerating.
Author Mitta says, "Much worse than Gujarat,
right in the heart of the Capital, not just mobs but influential congress
leaders. No justice till now.''
The Congress, ever ready to accuse the justice
process in the Gujarat riots, feels that justice has been done to the victims
of 1984.
Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi
says, "We have atoned, the Prime Minister has apologised."
Four hundred Sikhs were butchered here alone
in Block 32 of Trilokpuri, The killings were discovered by journalists. According
to the book, if they had not come here the police would have kept the horrifying
incidents at Trilokpuri a secret.
Approximately 1000 died n Gujarat, three times
that number perished in 1984. So far only 13 have been punished.
