The Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Ministry of Home Affairs is set to reopen and re-investigate close to 75 closed cases related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Also, the SIT will reportedly request the victims and witnesses to join the investigation and provide relevant information to the team.
Earlier Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging that either the Home Ministry-constituted SIT to investigate the 1984 anti-Sikh riots should ‘do something’ or wind it up and let the Delhi Government constitute another SIT.
In his letter, he wrote that the SIT has failed to re-open a single case even after 32 years. Kejriwal promised justice to the victims if the Delhi Government constitutes the SIT. “I would urge you to either get your SIT to do something or kindly wind up this SIT and allow the Delhi Government to set up an SIT which will do proper investigations and get justice for the victims,” he said.
Kejriwal pointed out that the SIT formed last year was set to file its report on 12 August, 2015. “But it is one-and-a-half years, yet the SIT has made absolutely no progress,” he said.
Initially, the Delhi Police had registered 587 cases, of which, 241 were closed due to lack of evidence. Barring four of the closed cases that were later reopened and 35 people were found guilty, 237 cases still remain unsolved.
It is noted that the MHA had set up a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Pramod Asthana, an Indian Police Sevice (IPS) officer from the 1986 batch of the Manipur-Tripura cadre to probe the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in February last year.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police in New Delhi, Kumar Gynash and Rakesh Kapoor, a retired District and Sessions Judge, was other member of the SIT. The Ministry of Home Affairs has spelt out the scope of the SIT very clearly to avoid any ambiguity.