Zee Media Bureau/Ajith Vijay Kumar

New Delhi: Members of Sikh organisations protested outside the All India Congress Committee office in the heart of the national capital on Thursday with the demand that Rahul Gandhi name the Congress leaders whom he alluded to having played a role in the 1984 riots.

Hundreds of protesters shouted slogans against the Congress leadership and burnt effigies on Akbar Road and accused the party of rubbing salt on the wounds of the victims.

They said the Congress has merely done lip service over the last 30 years and not brought any of the guilty to justice.

Rahul Gandhi brought the 1984 riots back into focus after he, in an interview to a news channel, sought to differentiate the role of governments during the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and in the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. The Congress vice president also refused to apologise for the riots saying he was not involved in them or in the Congress party at that time.

While Rahul accepted that some Congress men were probably involved in the riots, he stressed that they have gone through a legal process and some of them have been punished for it.

Reacting to Rahul`s statement, a protester said, “When Rahul says that some Congressmen were involved in the riots then the CBI should question him and reveal the names of the guilty.”

Another person said that Rahul gave the statement only to demoralise the Sikh community.

“We also ask Arvind Kejriwal to not do politics on the issue. While we welcome that he has raised the issue but the fact is that we have been demanding an SIT probe for the last 25 years,” they said.