“As soon as we entered
Block 32 we were greeted by a strong stench of burnt bodies
which were still rotting inside some of the houses. The entire
lane was littered with burnt
pieces of furniture, papers, scooters and piles of ash in the
shape of human bodies – the unmistakable signs of burnt human beings. Dogs were
on the prowl. Rats were nibbling at the still recognizable remains of a few
bodies.”
From Who Are The Guilty?
First fact-finding
report ( PUDR and PUCL) released on 10 November 1984 In this manner 2733 Sikhs
were killed in Delhi, houses and goods destroyed in the first week of November
1984. The team of democratic rights activists that investigated these
incidents, found it to be a massacre organised primarily by the Congress party.
It also declared the names of Congress leaders, police officers and others who were
identified by the survivors as inciting and participating in the mobs.
Today, 25 years later,
most of these murders remain unprosecuted. In the over 300 FIRs filed on murder
charges, barely 10 persons been convicted. This outcome is only to be expected,
given that the ruling Congress party prevented FIRs from being filed, refused
to institute a commission of enquiry. The judiciary lent a helping hand by
rejecting every petition demanding the same. No political party came out in aid
of the victims or even to oppose the murders.
Committees were set up
only six years later to identify the accused. Even then they received sufficient
witness testimonies to recommend launching of cases against Congress leaders
Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, HKL Bhagat and Dharam Das Shastri. As years
passed, witnesses died and other witness’
accounts lost their clarity and still others preferred silence in the
face of threats. Either no charges were
presented or else courts
acquitted the accused. The government did not care to challenge in the High Court
and victims’ families were forced to file appeals. The Nanawati commission
reopened some of these closed cases. Thus finally, one case each remained
against Sajjan Kumar and Tytler. The filing of the final report by the CBI on
28 March acquitting Tytler marks the end of the road for justice to the
victims.
The 1984 carnage thus
represented a turning point in India’s political scene. It sent a message that powerful
political parties could organise killings of thousands and get away scot free.
Thus we were to witness many similar pogroms during Advani’s Rath Yatra, Modi’s
Gujarat genocide, in Mumbai in 1993 and against Christians in Orissa, Gujarat
and Karnataka. The reference to 1984 occurs now at times of election when
victim’s grief becomes political football, and political parties trade charges
as to who has committed greater crimes against humanity and to compare their
communal credentials.
Ultimately the denial of
justice does not become just an abandoned orphan. The pogrom and subsequent
administrative and judicial apathy leads to festering wounds that find
expression in a mindless cycle of revenge and further violence. For, the 1984
carnage contributed more to Sikh militancy through the eighties and nineties
than any other factor. Similar analogies can be seen for Gujarat and the crimes
by security forces in Kashmir.
It is high time we
reject the vicious cycle of these murderous games and those who play them; to demand
that those who use their positions of power to commit heinous crimes against
innocent people should face jail and punishment; and that such criminals shall
hold no office in our institutions of democracy.
People’s Union for
Democratic Rights, (PUDR)
Delhi , April 2009