Just before his taking up the role of Cricket commentator during India- Pakistan match on February 15 in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, a criminal complaint has been filed against Amitabh Bachan in Australia seeking action against him for his alleged role in inciting and instigating genocidal violence against the Sikh community in November 1984 in Delhi.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Bhai Baldeep Singh has raised question over the effectiveness of newly formed Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Central government of India.
Drawing parallels between the Sikh position in India and Tamil position in Sri Lanka, the Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh said both had faced persecution from tyrant regime and justice too had eluded both. He alleged that all organs of the Indian states conspired, engineered and carried out massacres, violence, and acts of cultural and linguistic destruction” against the Sikh minority.
The Indian government has set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for re-investigation into the November 1984 massacre related cases in Delhi and other states. An order was issued on Thursday (Feb. 12) by Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh announcing the formation of the SIT.
It is notable that the Ranganath Mishra commission - the first one set up to probe the killings -- was given names, addresses and complete details of 3,870 people killed in Delhi. But the police said 1,419 were killed. The Delhi government filed a list of 2,300 people killed. A separate committee later established that 2,773 people died in Delhi alone.
A Delhi court recently reserved its order for February 12 on pleas of three accused who, along with Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, are facing trial in a 1984 Sikh massacre related case, seeking transfer of the case on the ground of jurisdiction.
Though the effectiveness Special Investigation Team (SIT) for November 1984 Sikh massacre related cases, which is going to be 12th such inquiry into the brutal Genocidal massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, remains under question; a Sikh activist group named All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) has welcomed the announcement to form SIT.
Dal Khalsa has termed the recommendations of Justice (Retd.) GP Mathur Panel to constitute SIT to re-investigate 237 cases related to Nov 1984 carnage as another ploy to mislead the Sikhs and to further prolong the already unending wait for justice.
There are reports in media the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) led government in the Center has decided to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe those cases related to November 1984 Sikh massacre in Delhi, which were closed by the police and did not reach courts.
Mathur Panel, which was constituted in December last year, had a three-month term but submitted its report within 45 days.
The 1984 Sikh genocide proved a turning point in changing the socio-political landscape of the Punjabi diaspora in various parts of the globe, especially in the US, the UK and Canada. It made the Sikhs conscious of their identity and the need of their assertive participation in political affairs.
Amidst a raging controversy sparked by his political party’s involvement in forcible reconversions of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the shocking choice to enlist Amitabh Bachchan to star in a propaganda ad encouraging secularism despite a string of accusations and legal cases that the actor incited the 1984 Sikh Genocide in clips broadcast on state-run TV channel Doordarshan.
The latest disclosure of Cabinet papers from 1985 and information being deliberately withheld is giving new momentum to the British Sikh community in calling for an independent public inquiry into the role of the Thatcher Government in the mid-1980s.
Reading the various papers, you get the impression that Sikhs in Britain were religious extremists wanting nothing less than the violent overthrew of the Indian state by all means and establishment of a separate Sikh state with no mention of the 1984 ‘Genocide’ acknowledged last week by the Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
Last week newly-released files from the Irish National Archives under the 30-year rule have revealed how Margaret Thatcher in November 1984 was paranoid about British Sikhs.
The David Cameron government has withheld the release of Punjab-related documents for 1985 and 1986 from a large cache of official documents declassified earlier this week. Four files related to India have been withheld: three from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) listed as ‘temporarily retained’, and one from the Cabinet Office described as ‘retained under section 3(4) of the Public Records Act, 1958.
The World Sikh Organization of Canada has written to Indian Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, welcoming his acknowledgement of the killing of Sikhs in November 1984 as a genocide and calling on him to follow up his announcement with investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for orchestrating and carrying out the killings.
Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Jarnail Singh maintained that 49 BJP and RSS workers were named in 14 FIRs related to November 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi. He said that the cases were registered following the recommendation of the Jain-Aggarwal Committee that was formed to examine the affidavits filed by riot victims before various probe panels.
A release by 1984 Genocide Coalitions says [f]urther top secret information has emerged about Margaret Thatcher’s averse and hostile attitude towards Sikhs; twelve months after initial disclosures of the British Prime Minister’s active collusion with the Indian government, in giving ‘advice’ and full moral support for the Indian government’s military genocide on Sikhs in 1984.
A day after the Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh acknowledged the fact of Sikh “genocide” 1984, US-based human rights group ‘Sikhs for Justice’ (SFJ) has announced to bring a resolution to this effect in the 70th UN General Assembly session through member countries who have signed the UN Convention on Genocide.
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