india

Updated: Dec 17, 2018 20:05 IST

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday welcomed the conviction of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. “It’s a case of justice finally delivered to the victims of one of the worst instances of communal violence,” he said.

“The reversal, by the Delhi High Court, of the earlier orders acquitting Sajjan proved that the judiciary in India continues stand as a pillar of the nation’s democratic system,” the CM said.

Reacting to the Delhi High Court judgment awarding life term to the former Congress MP, Amarinder Singh said the conviction vindicated the stand he had been taking “since those dark days of the violence perpetrated on thousands of innocent Sikhs” in the wake of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Sajjan Kumar was the only surviving Congress leader implicated in the riots, as the others had since passed away.

The name of Sajjan Kumar had repeatedly cropped up in his interactions with the victims in the refugee camps, said Amarinder Singh, who had last month also welcomed the first death sentence awarded in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

There was no Congress conspiracy behind the violence and the names of the Gandhis did not come up even once during his visits to the refugee camps, he said, alleging that it was vested political interests that had been trying to draw the Gandhi family into the controversy and the conspiracy for their personal motivations.