Punjab Rural and Urban Development Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa on Sunday questioned the Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming credit for conviction of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in the case relating to November 1984 anti-Sikh violence in Delhi.
Bajwa reminded Modi that Sajjan Kumar had been convicted following the appeal filed by the CBI on April 30, 2013, and the Prime Minister at that time was Dr Manmohan Singh. Sajjan Kumar had been sent to jail following appealed filed during the Congress regime, he added.
Mincing now words, Bajwa slammed the Prime Minister for “misleading” the nation by saying that this conviction was the result of SIT constituted by his government that had re-opened several cases from November 1984 earlier closed by the investigators. “The two other cases, in which Sajjan also faces trial, were those that had been re-opened by this SIT,” he said.
Calling upon the Prime Minister to cross check his facts before misleading the people, Bajwa also deflated Modi’s claim that Kartarpur Sahib corridor was his government’s achievement.
“The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had taken up this issue with Pak President Parvez Musharraf way back in February 1999. Dr Manmohan Singh followed it up earnestly and remained part of bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan,” he said.
Bajwa said that Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had used to raise this issue every time with his west Punjab counterpart Parvaiz Ilahi during their bilateral visits to both the countries during 2002-2007.
Recalling earlier history of the issue, Bajwa said that the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1969, during 500th anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, had promised land swap with Pakistan for the purpose.
“Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, on September 18 last, had produced a letter dated September 15 from the Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj that stated that the ‘Government has been taking up the matter with Pakistan. However, Pakistan has so far neither agreed to include visits to Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib by the Indian pilgrims under the bilateral Protocol on visits to religious shrines of 1974 nor has it sent any official communication for establishing a corridor’.
He said that the Kartarpur corridor was the positive outcome of earnest efforts made by the Prime Ministers in the past and prayers of the Sikh devotees.