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Congress at the receiving end for Tytler clean chit
The Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case has evoked an angry response from community leaders in Punjab, the only Sikh-majority state, and put the party on the defensive in the state ahead of the elections.
- IANS
- Published: 22:46 April 4, 2009
Chandigarh: The Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case has evoked an angry response from community leaders in Punjab, the only Sikh-majority state, and put the party on the defensive in the state ahead of the elections.
With the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), the temporal body of the Sikh community, Punjab's ruling Akali Dal party and other Sikh bodies gunning for the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the party will have to do a lot of explaining to people in the state.
Tytler, a former central minister, was accused of leading mobs during the anti-Sikh riots that broke out in Delhi and other places across the country following the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984.
Tytler is the Congress candidate for the northeast Delhi Lok Sabha seat.
The Congress' anguish in Punjab is reflected in the statement of former chief minister and the party's election campaign in-charge, Amarinder Singh.
"The clean chit [to Tytler] is unnecessary at this point and other parties will make an election issue out of it. It is embarrassing for the Congress," he told reporters in Jalandhar on Friday.
"Let the court decide on this. The Akalis and others are jumping the gun," he added.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal termed the clean chit to Tytler as an "outrage against humanity".
"I call upon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene even at this late stage to ensure that the CBI is not allowed to be used as a tool to shield the killers of thousands of innocent men, women and children. His silence at this hour could prove to be a historic failure to discharge his basic constitutional responsibility," he said in a statement here.
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