Sikhs should boycott Congress, says Sukhbir Badal

Just a day after Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi admitted that some party leaders could be involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal Tuesday called upon the Sikh community to boycott the Congress.

Condemning Gandhi for "not bothering to tender an apology" for the killing of hundreds of Sikhs in the 1984 riots, Badal said his "self-admission of the barbaric crimes of Congressmen in anti-Sikh genocide" should be suo moto taken notice of by the courts to take action against Congress leaders.

Badal, who is also the Akali Dal president, said his party would examine the possibility of legal course of action against the Congress in view of the "brazen admission" by Gandhi in an interview on Times Now channel telecast Monday.

Thousands of Sikhs were killed in various parts of India, especially in Delhi, in November 1984 in the aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards.

"Rahul Gandhi has added insult to the injured sentiments of the Sikh community. It is condemnable that he did not even bother to tender an apology to the community for the genocide," Badal told media during an event here Tuesday.

"If the Congress government was aware of the involvement of Congressmen in the 1984 riots, why it had not bothered to put them behind the bars?" he asked.

Ridiculing Gandhi for the comment that guilty Congress leaders would be punished, Badal said: "Failure to punish the guilty of the 1984 massacre and rewarding killers with high offices shows the real side of the Congress."