Sikh students march against 1984 ‘genocide’

NEW DELHI: Holding placards and tyres slung around their necks as a mark of protest, members of the All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) took out a march in the capital Sunday, demanding justice for the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

The AISSF activists and some victims’ families, who marched from Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to Jantar Mantar observatory built in 1710, off the posh shopping district of Connauht Place here, also demanded that the Indian Parliament acknowledge the riots “as a genocide of Sikhs”.

They raised slogans demanding “justice and punishment to those who perpetrated the anti-Sikh violence 25 years ago”, in which some 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the capital and other Indian cities. The riots erupted following the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards.

“Thousands of Sikhs were massacred in 110 cities of India in a systematic and organised manner, and justice (has) not only been delayed (but) it has been denied,” AISSF president Karnail Singh Peermohammed said.

Peermohammed said the AISSF would file PILs in high courts of the states “where massacres occurred” to demand that shut cases against police officers and politicians accused in the riots be reopened.

The AISSF will file a PIL in the Supreme Court, asking it to take cognisance of the “fact that the government had failed to protect the life, liberty and property of Sikhs”.

Responses