MHA to reopen Anti-Sikh riot cases against Kamal Nath

In trouble for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has given its permission to re-open a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case allegedly involving the senior Congress leader along with six other cases.

The Special Investigation Team set up by the Narendra Modi government during its first tenure will investigate these cases too. The SIT was formed to probe over 220 cases in the 1984 riots, which were closed.

The MHA nod for reopening these cases came on August 19. The decision on Kamal Nath's case came just before his nephew Ratul Puri was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case.

Kamal Nath and other Congress leaders, including Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, were accused of instigating crowds to indulge in rioting against Sikhs soon after the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards, who were Sikhs.

He is accused of leading a mob outside Rakabganj Gurudwara, located just outside Parliament House. Two Sikhs were killed in the incident.

The senior Congress has denied any involvement in rioting and Nanavati Commission, which probed the 1984 riots, had exonerated him giving him benefit of doubt. Kamal Nath had claimed that he was at the spot to calm down the crowd and that he did not instigate the riots.

Union Minister and senior Akali Dal leader Harsimrat Kaur tweeted, "reopening of the case against Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath in the #1984sikhgenocide is a victory for the Sikhs. This is the result of our sustained efforts to reopen cases wrongfully deemed as solved. Now, Kamal Nath will pay for his crimes."

Demanding his ouster as Chief Minister, she said, witnesses in the cases should be given protection as they get ready to depose. "Also, I urge citizens who have any info about the 1984 riot cases to come forward fearlessly," she added.

Other cases which are being re-opened were related to the riots in Munirka, Sunlight Colony, Kalyanpuri, Connaught Place, Anand Parbat and Babarpur Road.

The SIT has so far re-opened around 80 out of the 650 cases registered in connection with anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.

A total of 3,325 people were killed in the riots in which Delhi alone accounted for 2,733 deaths, while the rest occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and other states.

The Delhi Police had closed 241 cases citing lack of evidence. Justice Nanavati Commission had recommended reopening of only four of them but the Modi government constituted the SIT for re-investigation of all cases which the probe team finds appropriate.

The CBI had reopened and re-investigated only four cases. In two of them, the probe agency had filed a charge sheet and in one, five persons, including a former MLA, were convicted.

Last year, Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was sentenced to life for his role in the anti-Sikh riots.

On December 10, 2014, the Narendra Modi government had announced an additional compensation of Rs five lakh to the kin of each of those killed in the 1984 riots.

In May 2016, the Home Ministry had announced that 1,020 families, which had been hit by the riots and migrated to Punjab from different parts of the country, will be given Rs two lakh each as part of a centrally-sponsored rehabilitation scheme.