The 1984 anti-Sikh riots returned to haunt the Congress once again with Akali Dal activists laying siege to the AICC headquarters here on Monday to protest former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s reported “clean chit” to controversial leader Jagdish Tytler.
Singh, in an interview to NDTV, had said that Tytler’s name came up in connection with the anti-Sikh riots only when he was fielded againt BJP leader Madanlal Khurana in the Delhi elections months after the riots.
The remarks by Singh, who is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar, touched a raw nerve and a large number of Sikh activists led by Manjit Singh G K, the President of the Delhi unit Akali Dal held demonstrations outside the AICC. “We are protesting here because the Congress was responsible for the 1984 riots,” Manjit Singh said.
Police used water cannons to disperse the protestors, who tried to jump the barricades placed by the police to prevent the activists from marching towards the Congress office at 24, Akbar Road.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who is pitted against Singh in Amritsar, questioned the “clean chit” to Tytler.
“It is for the investigating and judicial process to find out the truth. Why has Capt. Amarinder Singh become the ‘Devil's Advcate’ and decided to offer a clean chit to Jagdish Tytler? Is he trying to pre-judge the guilt of a person who is perceived to be involved in the riots? Is a personal and political relationship more important to the Captain than the interest of the victims?” Jaitley wrote in his blog.
Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal claimed that Singh had never given a “clean chit” to Tytler. “Rather, Capt Amarinder Singh said: Who am I to give a clean chit?” Sibal said and claimed that a section of the media was reporting exactly the opposite.
Meanwhile, in Amritsar Amarinder Singh said in Amritsar that he had not given a clean chit to the Congress leader. “I had only stated what I had heard from the people immediately after the riots broke out in New Delhi after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984,” he said.
Earlier, in an interview to Times Now, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had refused to apologise for the anti-Sikh riots taking the plea that he was not involved in the incident. These remarks had triggered a furore.
