NEW DELHI, 19 December 2007 — An Indian court ordered a new inquiry yesterday into a former minister’s alleged role in anti-Sikh riots that left more than 3,000 people dead in 1984, an attorney said.
Rejecting the Central Bureau of Investigation’s report that sought the closure of the anti-Sikh riot case against former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler, the court ordered the CBI to reinvestigate it. Sanjiv Jain, additional chief metropolitan magistrate of the Delhi court said: “I am of the opinion that the matter needs to be further investigated. CBI is directed to further investigate the case and submit its report by Jan. 16.”
The incident in which Tytler was allegedly involved was one in which a mob had set fire to Gurdwara Pulbangash killing three persons. The CBI investigated the case following an affidavit submitted before Justice Nanavati Commission, which was set up to investigate anti-Sikh riots. The riots were sparked by the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was gunned down by her Sikh bodyguards after ordering a crackdown on Sikh separatists in northern India.
In the years since, there have been repeated allegations that top members of her Congress party helped organize the mobs that rampaged through Sikh neighborhoods in New Delhi during the riots.
Among the alleged masterminds was Tytler, who was a lawmaker at the time of the riots and a year later became federal minister. An earlier investigation had cleared Tytler of any role in the killings, but yesterday an Indian television station broadcast fresh allegations against him from a key witness who is now living in California, prompting the New Delhi court to order the inquiry reopened, said H. S. Phoolka, an attorney representing the victims. According to the witness interviewed by the CNN-IBN news channel, Jasbir Singh, a Sikh, Tytler told a mob of enraged Hindus to kill Sikhs and said he was ashamed because not enough Sikhs had been killed in his New Delhi constituency.
“I saw Tytler inciting the mob,” Jasbir, who escaped unharmed from the mob, said in the interview broadcast by CNN-IBN. He added that he had repeatedly tried to speak with investigators from India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, but they had ignored his attempts and declared him missing.
The “CBI said they can’t find me. They have finally accepted that I am available. All I want now is that the killers who murdered our people, raped our women, should be punished, even if it is after 23 years,” he said.
Investigations into what role, if any, senior Congress party members played in the killings have moved slowly with critics alleging that the party, which has ruled the country much of the time since the riots, is trying to protect its own. Congress officials deny a coverup.
Nonetheless, a government commission said in 2005 that Tytler, who was again serving as a minister, and three other senior Congress officials likely took part in the killings. Tytler subsequently resigned, but was last month cleared by CBI investigators. Several other people, none of them senior Congress members, have been sent to prison for taking part in the riots.
Welcoming the court’s order, Navkiran Singh, counsel for Jasbir, said: “We welcome the court’s order to reopen the case against Tytler. CBI was looking for shortcuts in the case.”
Meanwhile, Tytler, claiming that he was not involved in the riots, questioned Jasbir’s role as a key witness. “There are a lot of discrepancies in Jasbir’s statements. He will expose himself when the CBI questions him,” Tytler said.
