AAP hails HC ruling on Sajjan Kumar; blames Advani for ‘Blue Star’

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 20

The AAP on Thursday raising in the Assembly the 1984 anti-Sikh riots issue, hailed the High Court verdict convicting former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar for 34-year-old murders and hoped justice is done in similar mass killings, including 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister.

The AAP also blamed BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani for the Operation Blue Star ordered by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to flush out Sikh radicals from Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar in June 1984 that later in the year led to the assassination of Gandhi.

Participating in the discussion under Rule 55 in Delhi Assembly, AAP MLA Avtar Singh Kalkaji accused the BJP and its government at the Centre of trying to take credit for the convictions in the ’84 Sikh carnage in a bid to polarise votes ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

“If Advani would not have instigated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, (Operation) Blue Star would not have happened and she would not have been killed.... It was the AAP government which had announced an SIT (during its first stint in power)..., but in 2015, the Modi government hurriedly formed an SIT to take the credit,” Kalkaji told in the House.

He demanded the BJP provide all government records of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the phase that led to it.

Saurabh Bhardwaj called Sajjan Kumar “Durjan Kumar” and went on to place before the House chilling excerpts from the judgement of the High Court on the horrific murders in November following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards.

Referring to the 1984, 1992-93 and 2002 mass killings of specific communities, the AAP leader said the slogans were the same (targeting particular religious groups) only the political parties executing the murders changed.

The opposition comprising three BJP leaders and Akali Dal leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa, was seen sitting quiet throughout the tirade by AAP lawmakers over the mass crimes the country has witnessed since Independence during the two-day special session of the Assembly.