Tytler acquittal triggers uproar in parliament (Afternoon Lead)

NEW DELHI - The acquittal of Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case caused an uproar in parliament Thursday, forcing an adjournment of the Rajya Sabha while the Lok Sabha witnessed heated exchanges on the issue.

Akali Dal member Raj Mohinder Singh Majitha raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha midway through the question hour, complaining that the government was lax in prosecuting those responsible for the riots that followed the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

He demanded an immediate discussion on the issue.

As Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan asked the Akali MPs to serve notice, they advanced towards the presiding officer’s podium. Khan then adjourned the house till 2 p.m.

Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha during zero hour, Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur said the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) helped Tytler, a former union minister, to escape the clutches of the law by contending that there was no evidence of his involvement in the riots.

“CBI is working as Congress Bureau of Investigation. The government used official machinery (to sabotage the case),” Kaur maintained.

She also complained that no action had been taken against the accused even two-and-a-half decades after the riots in which some 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the national capital alone.

When she quoted former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi as saying that “when a big tree falls, the ground shakes” in connection with the anti-Sikh violence, Congress members protested, leading to a heated exchange between opposition and ruling party members.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal attempted to cool tempers by saying: “What happened in 1984 was not only most tragic, but a most shameful act.”

At the same time, he asked the Akali Dal MPs not to “bake a political cake out of the funeral fire”.

Referring to terrorism in Punjab during the Khalistan movement in the 1980s and early 1990s, Bansal said “These people (the Akali Dal) did not have the courage to come out (against it)”.

“Please don’t make political mileage out of it,” Bansal said, amid uproar by opposition MPs.

At one stage, it seemed the house might have to be adjourned but Speaker Meira Kumar tactfully controlled the situation and order was restored.

A Delhi court Tuesday gave a clean chit to Tytler, a former union minister, in an anti-Sikh riots case and accepted the CBI closure report that ruled out his involvement.

“There is insufficient material to send Tytler to trial,” Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit said.

Giving a reprieve to 66-year-old Tytler, the court accepted the CBI’s plea that most statements made by two key witnesses - California-based Jasbir Singh and Surinder Singh - were “contradictory, false and concocted”.