Dubai: He is known as the Sikh journalist who threw a shoe at India’s then home minister P. Chidambaram at a press conference held at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi.
The "famous" shoe is today kept in display at a Sikh museum in Derby in UK. The incident made Jarnail Singh front page news in major Indian newspapers. Television channels lined up to interview him and overnight, Singh found himself in the corridors of Indian politics.
Calling it an extraordinary situation, 41-year-old Singh who is currently on a visit to the UAE said: “The incident took place on April 7, 2009. I was working with Dainik Jargan in those days. As a journalist I regret my actions,” Singh said.
Following the incident, Singh was terminated from his job with immediate effect but continued to work as a catalyst for change, eventually getting the Congress party to withdraw the poll ticket given to those accused in the 1984 anti-sikh riots.
“The two congressmen, Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, who stood accused in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots were given a clean bill by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in India. They were even acquitted by the court. Chidambaram at that particular press conference, which I was assigned to cover, expressed his happiness on the two Congressmen being cleared. As a journalist, I questioned him about it and he tried to shut me up by saying that I should not use the platform to serve my own agenda. I told him politely, that as a journalist I had all the right to ask questions. The minister then tried to dodge my question by saying that he does not want to get into an argument with me. When I heard him saying that, something took over me. I removed a shoe and hurled it at him.”
Accepting that he had crossed a journalist’s code of conduct, Singh said that his intention was to revive the investigation into the riots.
“I wanted to put the government and the system to shame. In my opinion, my actions brought the 1984 riots back to surface. If those who stood accused were brought to book, the Gujarat and the Orrisa riots would not have taken place. So many innocent lives would not have been lost in communal violence. There is a law passed on wildlife protection and even Bollywood actor Salman Khan is booked under it, but why is the government not able to book those who are involved in communal violence,” Singh, who has written a book on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, said.
Today he has made his mission to work towards getting justice to all those innocent people who lost their lives in 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
