Chandigarh: Punjab CM hails HC verdict convicting Sajjan Kumar

Terming it a case of justice finally delivered to the victims of one of the worst instances of communal violence in independent India, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday welcomed the conviction of Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 riots case.

Reacting to the Delhi High Court judgement awarding life term to the former the Congress MP, Singh asserted that the conviction vindicated the stand he had been taking since those dark days of the violence perpetrated on thousands of innocent Sikhs in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Commenting further on the High Court verdict, the chief minister said, "The reversal, by the High Court, of the earlier acquittal of Sajjan by a trial court had once again proved that the judiciary in India continues to stand tall as a pillar of the nation's democratic system".

Hailing the long-awaited verdict, Singh also said that he had been naming Sajjan Kumar, along with a few other former Congress leaders including Dharam Das Shastri, HKL Bhagat and Arjun Das, for the past 34 years, based on the information he had personally received from victims in refugee camps in Delhi during the riots.

Singh also said that he had been calling for the strictest of punishment for the handful of individual Congress leaders who had been involved in instigating the riots.

"These leaders, who included Sajjan Kumar, did not have any official party sanction and deserved to be punished for their horrendous crime", the Chief Minister said.

He however reiterated his stand that neither the Congress party nor the Gandhi family had any role to play in the rioting and lashed out at the opposition, Shiromani Akali Dal, saying that "It continues to drag their names into the case at the behest of their political masters - the Bharatiya Janata Party, who were clearly shaken by the clear mandate given by the people to Rahul Gandhi's leadership in the recent Assembly elections in three states".