Tytler dropped at last minute
Rob Marris, MP and chair of the British parliament's all-party group on Sikhs, said he objected to Tytler's planned October 29 entry to Britain in an emergency meeting with Ivan Lewis, Junior Foreign Office Minister responsible for India, and in a letter to Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
London: Congress leader Jagdish Tytler was dropped from the Indian delegation for the launch of the Commonwealth Games baton relay in London last week, Sikh groups said, after a British MP asked Scotland Yard to arrest him for his role in the 1984 Sikh massacre.
However, Indian diplomats said they had no knowledge of the reported plans by Tytler to visit Britain.
Rob Marris, MP and chair of the British parliament's all-party group on Sikhs, said he objected to Tytler's planned October 29 entry to Britain in an emergency meeting with Ivan Lewis, Junior Foreign Office Minister responsible for India, and in a letter to Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
Eleventh hour
Sikh groups claimed Tytler was dropped from the Indian delegation at the eleventh hour after Marris wrote to Miliband October 28 saying his presence in Britain was "unacceptable".
Invitation cards sent more than a week in advance of the baton relay launch on October 29 mentioned the presence of only Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi and Sports Minister M.S. Gill.
In his letter to Miliband, Morris described Tytler, a former minister, as "a controversial former politician from India, who is alleged to have been deeply involved in the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in India, in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi".
