The Congress party on Friday released a statement distancing itself from Sam Pitroda’s despicable ‘Hua to hua‘ statement where he shrugged off the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Congress party issues statement over Sam Pitroda’s remark on 1984 anti-Sikh riots. States, ‘…We continue to support the quest for justice for 1984 riot victims. Any opinion remark made by any individual to the contrary including Sam Pitroda is not the opinion of Congress party’ pic.twitter.com/Yd1rxfYCYe — ANI (@ANI) May 10, 2019

In a statement released by the Congress, the grand old party invokes the 2002 Gujarat riots which took place following the Godhra carnage where over 50 kar sevaks were burnt alive when they were returning from Ayodhya. Distancing itself from Pitroda’s ‘1984 happened, so what?’ remark, the Congress said that Sam’s opinion on 1984 riots is not that of the Congress.

In the statement, the Congress further took a dig on Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and said, “Unlike the BJP, which has decided to field a candidate charged with terror crimes and is being lauded as its face by none less than Shri Narendra Modi himself, Congress has shown the moral and political courage to punish people and leaders accused of violence/role in 1984.”

This statement is false on multiple levels. Sadhvi Pragya is not “charged with terror crimes”, but is, in fact, given a clean chit by the NIA in the Malegaon Blast case.

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Secondly, Congress has not quite ‘punished’ the people and leaders accused of violence/role in 1984 riots. Jagdish Tytler, was elected to Lok Sabha in 1991 and served as Union Minister of State for Surface Transport and was re-elected to Lok Sabha in 2004. He was dropped only in 2009 due to the controversy over his roles in 1984 riots.

Similarly, Sajjan Kumar was reelected in 1991 Lok Sabha and then again in 2004. In 2004 he won by the largest number of votes ever in India, 855,543, representing Congress in outer Delhi. He then served as Member, Committee on Urban Development and Committee on Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme. Tytler and Kumar are both accused of leading a murderous mob and engineering the anti-Sikh riots.

Recently, Sajjan Kumar was convicted by the Delhi High Court for murdering five Sikhs in the Delhi Cantonment area during the 1984 Sikh genocide. The court, while awarding him a life sentence and had also asked to pay Rs 5 lakh as fine.

Yet another Congress leader accused of leading a mob, Kamal Nath, was made the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in December. Prior to that, he has been elected nine times from Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh and has held various portfolions. Kamal Nath is accused of leading a violent mob attack on Gurdwara Rakabgunj on November 1, 1984, in which the mob had burnt two Sikhs, a father and son alive.