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New Delhi: Hailing the sentencing of veteran Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and Delhi Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said it was time that perpetrators of communal violence in Gujarat and Muzzafarnagar were also punished.
“I welcome Delhi High Court verdict convicting Sajjan Kumar in 1984 riots case. It has been a very long and painful wait for innocent victims who were murdered by those in power,” he tweeted.
Kejriwal said ordinary people are peace-loving and wish to live in harmony, but such riots are “incited politically”.
“Nobody involved in any riot should be allowed to escape no matter how powerful the individual maybe. I hope after this verdict, all other big leaders involved in 1984 anti-Sikh riots also get the toughest of punishments,” Kejriwal stated.
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its chief Amit Shah without directly naming them, Kejriwal said all those who instigated communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 and Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 should be severely punished.
“People wish to live in peace, and Hindus and Muslims do not want to fight with each other, but parties instigate it and big political leaders do it. They should also get the toughest punishment,” he said.
Both Shah and then chief minister of Gujarat Modi are time and again accused of initiating and condoning the violence in 2002, as were some police and government officials who allegedly directed the rioters and gave lists of Muslim-owned properties to them.
Kejriwal emphasised that such incidents would not happen in future if immediate and exemplary punishment is given to perpetrators of communal violence.
Meanwhile, Sajjan Kumar, 73, on Tuesday announced that he was quitting the Congress party.
“I tender my resignation with immediate effect from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress in the wake of the judgement of the High Court of Delhi against me,” Kumar wrote in a letter to Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
Delhi High Court (HC) had on Monday sentenced Kumar to jail “for the remainder of his natural life”, cancelling an earlier court order acquitting him.
Kumar was convicted in the killing of five members of a family in Raj Nagar and torching of a ‘gurdwara’ in Delhi on November one, 1984.
At least 3,000 people were killed in the anti-Sikh riots. Kumar, a former Parliamentarian from Outer Delhi constituency, is the first big leader of Congress to be convicted.
Earlier in 2013, the Karkardooma trial court had acquitted him along with five others. Later, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the families of the victims challenged their acquittal in Delhi HC.
