JALANDHAR: After Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi 's comments that there were differences between 1984 anti-Sikh riots and 2002 Gujarat riots and refrained from tendering an apology for the '84 riots, senior Supreme Court advocate H S Phoolka who has been spearheading the legal battle to get justice for the victims has said that Rahul was right to the extent that there is a difference in the Gujarat riots and the 1984 riots but his reasons are all wrong.

"The actual difference is that in case of the Gujarat riots all those cases which were closed by the Police were reopened and reinvestigated by the SIT. The Congress fully supported the formation of this SIT. In a shameful display of double standards, when it comes to the 1984 riot cases, again most of the cases were closed by the Police itself but the Congress is not supporting the demand of formation of SIT ," pointed out Phoolka who also co-authored a book titled- "When A Tree Shook Daily," coined after Rajiv Gandhi's famous quote after his mother Indira Gandhi's assassination. According to the Nanavati Commission Report which was submitted in 2005, a total of 587 FIRs were registered in Delhi and out of these 241 were closed by the Police as untraced and were never even sent to Court for trial. "It is thus absolutely imperative to form an SIT to reopen and reinvestigate these cases but unfortunately the Congress is not interested in formation of an SIT. There are other glaring differences as well. In the Gujarat riots, 131 persons have been awarded life imprisonment, 10 have been awarded the death sentence and one minister has been sentenced to 28 years imprisonment. In stark contrast, in the riots of 1984, hardly anyone has been punished. "As far as the involvement of the Government is concerned, Rahul Gandhi should only see the report of Mishra Commission, a commission appointed by the Congress government only," Phoolka said while quoting from the Mishra Commission 's report which read- "If the Army had been called in the morning of November 1, 1984-and by then about 5,000 Army people were at Delhi- the position would certainly not have been as bad as it turned out to be. 5,000 Army jawans divided into columns and moving into the streets properly armed would not have brought about the death of at least 2,000 people." Those political leaders who openly led the mob were rewarded and given high positions. Instead of sending them to jail they were given position of power and made ministers. This sent a wrong signal and started a dangerous precedent that murders of hundred and thousands of innocents would not be punished, and would rather be rewarded. If the guilty of 1984 riots had been punished, we wouldn't have seen the riots of Mumbai in 1993 or the riot of Gujarat in 2002 and it was the active connivance of the Congress government in 1984 and its massive cover up for all these decades thereafter, that has prevented justice from being done for the victims of 1984, he said adding, Rahul Gandhi's statement was like salt on the wounds of the victims of 1984. "During the 1984 riots, throughout Delhi, Sikhs had been disarmed by the Police and they were arrested from their houses, if they defended themselves and their children. Even the "Right To Defend" of its citizens had been brutally stripped off, let alone protect them. Wherever any Sikh tried to himself and his children, the Police reached in large numbers and arrested that Sikh from his house, but didn't even touch anyone in the mob," Phoolka said. "If this is not government's connivance, then we ask Gandhi, what is it?" asked the Supreme Court advocate.