Trouble mounts for Nath as ’84 witness wants to depose

Tribune News Service 
New Delhi, September 15

Congress veteran and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s troubles just mounted with UK-based journalist Sanjay Suri, one of the two eyewitnesses in the 1984 Sikh killing FIR against Nath today, saying that he wants to come to India and depose in the 35-year-old case.

Suri, who was a journalist at the time of anti-Sikh violence at Gurdwara Rakabganj in Delhi after the assassination of former PM Indira Gandhi, had even then said he had seen Nath at the site of the killings on November 1, 1984. The matter was never fully investigated nor was Nath ever probed or charged.

The special investigation team set up by the BJP government in 2015 earlier this week reopened the case against Nath and gave a public notice inviting witnesses.

Suri, in response to the September 9 notice, has now written to the SIT saying he is an eye witness in the case and wants to depose and record his statement. Suri has asked SIT to give him a date, time and venue to come to India and record his testimony.

Akali Dal spokesperson Manjinder Singh Sirsa tweeted today, “Justice can be delayed; can’t be avoided. I hail Sanjay Suri Ji’s decision to appear as eyewitness in FIR case. Kamal Nath, start counting your days. @RahulGandhi, be ready to hear Truth of how deeply & brutally @INCindia was involved in 1984 Genocide.”

The Delhi HC had in December last rejected the acquittal of former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in a matter related to the killing of five Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment in 1984. Kumar is serving a life sentence for conspiracy in those murders after the CBI challenged his acquittal by a lower court and secured his conviction. Nath will however face a formal investigation for 1984 killings.