Ensure reopening of Bokaro 1984 carnage cases: Sukhbir to Jharkhand CM

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday urged Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das to ensure the reopening or transfer of all 1984 Sikh

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday urged Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das to ensure the reopening or transfer of all 1984 Sikh massacre cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

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He said the party would send a team of lawyers from the Supreme Court to study these cases before taking up the matter at the highest level.

Addressing a congregation as part of the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev here, the SAD president said that more than 100 Sikhs were brutally killed in Bokaro in 1984. He said it was unfortunate that not a single accused has been convicted and punished so far for such a heinous crime.

“I urge the Jharkhand chief minister to set up a special investigation team (SIT) immediately to reopen all 1984 cases and ensure they are reinvestigated and taken to their logical conclusion,” Sukhbir added.

He appealed to the entire Sikh sangat to unite under the banner of the SAD to get “all wrongs done to the community corrected”.

Speaking about similar cases in Delhi and Kanpur, Sukhbir said the wounds of the Sikhs cannot be healed until all the accused in the gruesome crime are punished.

Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) president Manjinder Singh Sirsa also spoke at the event.

A Sikh delegation from Jharkhand in the morning also met the SAD president at Ranchi and urged him to expand the SAD by creating a unit of the party in their state.

They described the SAD as the only political party that represented the Sikhs across the country. The delegation members included Balbir Singh Saluja, a member of BJP working committee.