An All India Sikh Students Federation delegation met Chief Minister Raghubar Das and demanded constitution of a Special Investigating Team (SIT) to probe the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 in Jharkhand.
State president of the federation, Satnam Singh Gambhir, said that ever since Das took over as the CM of Jharkhand, the victims of 1984 Sikh genocide are pinning hopes on his Government to get justice, which has been denied for the past several decades.
He said that the delegation has handed over a memorandum to the CM in this regard. He further informed that the assassination of Indira Gandhi led to 1984 Sikh massacre in India. The Sikhs in Bokaro, Dhanbad, Ranchi, Ramgarh and Adityapur (Seraikela Kharsawan district) were murdered while their properties were destroyed in the genocide.
He said that as per the FIR filed by the police, 90 Sikhs were killed in Bokaro. There were several families whose members became handicapped and lost means of livelihood. Surprisingly, the number of victims mentioned in FIR reports is different what the Government report claims. As per the police, 90 Sikhs were killed in Bokaro while as the Government claims that only 79 persons died during the riots.
“We wish to draw the Government’s attention towards another startling fact. As per the Government records, a total of 460 cases of murder and violence were filed in Jharkhand during the riots. Out of these cases, only 129 cases have been filed in the Court. While 130 cases were branded ‘unsolved’ and the files of these cases were shelved. To utter surprise, even after 30 years of the genocide, about 13 cases are still pending in different courts of Jharkhand in which the initial investigation has not been called into”, said Gambhir.