Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to order fresh probe by a new Special Investigation Team (SIT) into 186 cases of anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
Amarinder hoped that justice would finally be meted out to the innocent victims.
"More than 30 years have passed since the gory violence, which claimed many lives and left many others homeless, and while various Commissions were set up to investigate the cases, justice continued to elude the victims.
"Several names had cropped up in connection with the riots, and it is now up to the SIT to verify the allegations and bring the investigation to its logical conclusion," Amarinder said.
"It is high time that justice be provided in these cases," Amarinder, who himself had quit as MP in 1984 in protest against the violence, said.
Nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi and other places across the country in anti-Sikh violence sparked off by the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards.
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Referring to the ban announced by certain elements on entry of Indian officials in gurdwaras in Canada and the United States, the Chief Minister said anyone, be it Sikh or non-Sikh, could enter the "guru ghar" (abode of the Guru) to pay his respects or partake the "langar prasad".
"It is against the 'Sikhi' (tenets of Sikhism) to stop anyone from entering the gurdwaras," he said, condemning the ban as totally wrong.
"It is for the management committees of the gurdwaras, as well as the Sikh community in these countries to put a stop on such acts," he said, pointing out that never in history had any person been barred from entering a gurdwara.
--IANS
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