The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to tell Punjabis why he continued to follow the Gandhi family policy of protecting and promoting the perpetrators of the 1984 anti-Sikh genocide as had been done in the case of Kamal Nath who has been appointed party incharge for the Punjab Congress.In a statement here, SAD Secretary and spokesman Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema said the appointment of Kamal Nath was the direct fall out of the recent visit to the State by Rahul Gandhi. “You have only rubbed salt on our wounds by making this appointment” Dr Cheema told Rahul adding “Punjabis want to know why the Gandhi family continues to honour the perpetrators of the 1984 genocide with plum party posts. What is the Gandhi family afraid of? Why has it consistently blocked any action against senior leaders including Kamal Nath and Jagdish Tytler?” he asked.
The SAD leader said now it had become even more important to make all documents relevant to the 1984 genocide public. He said it was it was a fact that Nath had been indicted by the Nanavati Commission and that a witness had testified to seeing Nath leading an armed mob that attacked and demolished the Rakabganj gurdwara. Several Sikhs were burnt alive during the attack. Besides this Dr Cheema said Nath’s presence at the site was also confirmed by two senior police officers - Commissioner Subhash Tandan, and Additional Commissioner Guatam Kaul besides a newspaper reporter Sanjay Suri. The newspaper reporter had in his report noted that Nath was leading the mob which was looking at him for directions.
“In the light of this evidence we feel there are sufficient grounds to convict Kamal Nath and make him pay for staining his hands with the blood of innocent Sikhs”, Dr Cheema said while demanding that all files regarding this incident be reopened. He said it was also surprising that Rahul allowed his judgement to be clouded by the responsibility given to him by his family to protect Nath and did not care for the overwhelming evidence that Nath instigated mobs to butcher Sikhs”.Dr Cheema also asked Congress President Sonia Gandhi to come clean on this issue. He said despite the fact that nine commissions of enquiry and many independent human right organisations had fixed responsibility for massacre on Sajjan Kumar, Kamal Nath, H.K.L. Bhagat and Jagdish Tytler, Sonia Gandhi kept mum indicating her tacit backing for tainted congress leaders. He reminded the Congress that it was the SAD which had opposed the cover up operation of the Congress to save its leaders from punishment. We have consistently opposed the cover up by the CBI during Congress led UPA rule and it was only now after the NDA government has come to power that the issue is being re-examined, he added. EOM