The shadow of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots is back to haunt the Congress and Jagdish Tytler once again. A Delhi court on Wednesday ordered reopening of a 1984 riot case against Mr Tytler in which the CBI had given him a clean chit. The agency has now been told to reinvestigate this case.
With Delhi heading for Assembly elections in November this year, the order comes as a setback to the Congress, that had been gunning for Gujarat CM Narendra Modi over his alleged role in the 2002 communal carnage in his state.
The BJP is now expected to make the anti-Sikh riots one of its major poll planks both in Delhi and at the national level, particularly in Punjab. Some feel the court order could even help consolidate the Akali Dal’s position in Punjab, which has of late been hit by a series of law and order problems.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has upheld the life sentence awarded to four persons for burning two men to death in 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Mr Tytler is accused of instigating a mob that allegedly killed three men — Badal Singh, Thakur Singh and Gurcharan Singh — who had taken shelter in a gurdwara on November 1, 1984.
AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, when asked if Mr Tytler should step down as a permanent invitee to the CWC and its Orissa in-charge, came to his defence, and said: “Tytler has not yet been convicted... So why should he step down?”
The BJP, stepping up its attack on the Congress over this issue, “welcomed” the court order and described the anti-Sikh riots as a “sponsored massacre”.
BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said: “After 28 years, the sin committed by Congress operatives will be exposed. This was clearly a Congress-sponsored massacre of Sikhs and there has not been a single conviction.” She noted that the “one-sided massacre raged on for five days in the national capital, and even longer in some other parts of the country”.
The CBI has been directed to examine eyewitnesses who claimed to have more information on the riots. Additional sessions judge Anuradha Shukla Bhardwaj set aside a magistrate’s court order that had accepted the CBI’s closure report giving a clean chit to Mr Tytler.
Senior advocate H.S. Phoolka, appearing for petitioner Lakhwinder Kaur, had submitted there was material which the agency had ignored, and evidence was also there before the trial court against Mr Tytler. “The CBI had time to examine Tytler’s driver, who had deposed in his favour, but they had no time to record the statement of witnesses who had seen Tytler at the spot of the incident. Are they (CBI) investigating on the command of Tytler?” he argued.
The CBI, however, sought dismissal of the plea filed by the victim, saying the probe had made it clear Mr Tytler was not present on November 1, 1984 at Gurudwara Pulbangash in North Delhi. CBI spokesman Dharini Mishra said on Wednesday the agency would study the court’s order and decide its future course of action.
It may be recalled that the CBI had given Mr Tytler a clean chit on April 2, 2009 for lack of evidence against him. On April 27, 2010, a magistrate had accepted the CBI’s closure report, saying Mr Tytler was present at Teen Murti Bhavan and was not at the spot of the crime, and that the contention of the CBI was justified by material, including some visual tapes and the versions of some independent witnesses.
One witness, Jasbir, who had later moved to the United States, had claimed in an affidavit before the Justice Nanavati Commission that he had heard Mr Tytler on November 3, 1984 flaying his men for “nominal killings” carried out during the riots. The court rejected Jasbir’s version, saying he had deposed on something that had taken place on November 3, 1984, while the case related to an incident of November 1, 1984.
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CBI told to reopen Tytler ’84 riot case
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