 "Harsimrat Badal welcomes move to set up SIT on 1984 anti-Sikhs riots")
Union Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal today welcomed the central initiative to establish a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to go into the 1984 Sikh genocide cases, and urged Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to release Rs 5 lakh compensation to the victims of the anti-Sikh riots.
In a statement issued here, Badal said she had met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to press for this demand as the entire Sikh community had welcomed the appointment of Justice Mathur Committee on December 23 to examine the possibility of re-investigation of the 1984 Sikh genocide besides welcoming the announcement of the compensation for victims.
"I have urged the Home minister to expedite the implementation of this decision besides taking the next series of steps to ensure justice to the victims of the 1984 carnage and bring closure to their sufferings", she added.
The minister said now that voting process had been completed in Delhi, the time was appropriate to expedite the process of justice for Sikh genocide victims besides dispersing compensation to them. She also demanded daily hearing of cases to ensure quick justice to the victims.
She said that more than 7,000 Sikh were killed in Delhi during the '84 Sikh genocide but so far just 13 cases of murder have seen convictions. "Only 30 persons have been convicted in the past 30 years. Of these 30, almost all are now on bail or their convictions have been condoned by higher courts," she said, adding that the Ranganath Mishra commission, the first one set up to probe the riots, had given given names, addresses and complete details of 3,870 people killed in Delhi.
She said according to the Delhi police only 1,419 were killed, whereas, the Delhi government had listed that 2,300 people had been killed. A separate committee later established that 2,773 people died in Delhi alone. These anomalies should be removed, she added.