Shiromani Akali Dal General Secretary and MP Prof. Prem Singh Chandumajra said his party would move censure motion in the winter session of the Lok Sabha to condemn the Congress for the genocide of the Sikhs in November, 1984 and demand exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of this crime against humanity. In a statement issued here today, Mr. Chandumajra said it was shameful that even after thirty years, the guilty of this planned massacre in which thousands of Sikh men, women and children were burnt alive and women raped on the instigation of Rajiv Gandhi and his coterie after the assassination of Indira Gandhi were still to be punished. The Congress virtually sprinkled salt on the raw wounds of the Sikhs by honouring the perpetrators of these crimes with high government offices like ministries rather than prosecute them.
This blot of killing of thousands of innocents in independent India could not be washed away from the face of the Congress.He said 1984 killing of the Sikhs would continue to be remembered as the third big massacre of the Sikhs, the earlier two being during the Mughal empire. Appreciating the move initiated by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee to erect a memorial to commemorate the 1984 martyrs, he said it would continue to remind the Sikhs like the memorials related to earlier two massacres about this tragedy in free India. The Sikhs would neither forget it nor forgive the Congress as well as Gandhi family for it.
Prof. Chandumajra welcomed the decision of the Narendra Modi government to give a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh to each family of the victims of this massacre and said this would be a big help to the next generation to start life anew. However, this chapter would be closed only after the guilty were punished. By announcing this financial help, the BJP had given the signal loud and clear that the attitude of this party towards the Sikhs was totally different from that of the Congress. This had also given some hope about the guilty being prosecuted and punished, he added.