NEW DELHI: “This is a criminal government and it must be voted out,” urged Swami Agnivesh who ‘Was joined by all speakers at the Boat Club rally to mark the fifth Anniversary of the 1984 riots, in branding the Congress (1) GovernMent as unjust and unscrupulous.
Mrs Gandhi’s assassins were supposedly identified and punished in the same period when murderers of thousands of innocents are still at large and the Government has failed to arrest them let alone punish them, said Swami Agnivesh. Organized by the All India Sikh Conference (Babbar) the rally was composed largely of the widows of the riot victims and marked the first day of a weeklong protest to pay tribute to the victims.
The complicity of the Government in the anti-Sikh riots after Mrs Gandhi’s assassination was compounded further by the stalling of the legal process and the mock committees which the Government formed, he said. The same communal venom is on the increase all over the country and can be checked only by stripping the Congress (1) regime from power, Swami Agnivesh added. “Those that hounded General Dyer all the way to England can very well do the same if need be and reach Italy in search of justice,” he said.
Meanwhile the widows at the rally vowed that they would never again vote for the Congress (I). “There willsnever be any justice from this Government of murderers. We have no state pension or benefits. The DDA is now sending, us notices demanding payment of Rs 42,000 for the flats given to us after the riots in lieu of our destroyed homes,” said Harjit Kaur who lost all her male family members in the carnage.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 17, 1989
