Is SIT move an electoral ploy, asks Congress

The anti-Sikh riots, which followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, claimed over 3,000 lives, including 2,000 in Delhi.

Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala wondered whether the move to set up an SIT probe was an “electoral ploy or gimmick of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to woo voters ahead of the polls.”

Aam Aadmi Party leader and senior advocate H.S. Phoolka sought to question the “leak” to the media. “A leak has come out in the media that Justice G.P. Mathur has stated in his report that [a] SIT is necessary to punish the guilty of the November 1984 carnage. If it is true, this finding… of a retired Supreme Court judge is a severe indictment of the NDA government, which continued to stall the functioning of the SIT ordered by the Kejriwal government in February 2014,” he said in a press statement.

Akali Dal leader and Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Committee chief Manjit Singh G. K. welcomed the move and said the SIT should be set up at the earliest. “The Akali Dal has been fighting for long for justice for the 1984 riot victims and now we are thankful to the Prime Minister who created this committee,” he said.

Earlier, the Justice G.T. Nanavati Commission had recommended re-opening of only four of the 241 cases closed by the police, though the BJP had wanted the re-investigation of all the other 237 cases.