JALANDHAR: Nearly 30 years have passed since Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi saved his Sikh neighbour and his family in Delhi from mobs following Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984. "But images of their scared faces have never gone out of my memory," he told TOI on Tuesday as the nation prepares to observe three decades of the riots.

Speaking over the phone from Delhi, he added, "Had I not saved Gurcharan Singh's family that day it would have been a burden I would have had to carry for my entire life. I would have held myself guilty for not rising up to my duty as a human being."

Satyarthi who worked as a volunteer and provided relief to victims said, "Great injustice has been done to the victims. Their minds and lives have been greatly wounded. They are deeply scarred. People should realize this and look for ways to heal these wounds."

He believes that it is not just the Sikh community that needs to heal its wounds. "The entire country needs it as it is a collective responsibility," he said. "I have not been tracking individual cases but a delay of three decades is definitely there," he added.

A strong believer in Gandhian values, Satyarthi said, "The crime was not only against the Sikh community, but against humanity at large, against the nation, against the democratic spirit of the country. Justice is the collective responsibility of society."

Satyarthi said although many non-Sikhs worked to help their Sikh neighbours, "I think people should have turned out in larger numbers to oppose the rioters and save the hapless victims."

"Sardarji (Gurcharan Singh) and his family stayed at our home for two days," he said, recalling the first day of the violence. "He was not at home when the violence started. He had three daughters and they were so traumatized they were unable to speak anything. I went out on a bike with another neighbor to look for Sardarji. After a few hours he returned on his own after sacrificing his hair and beard."

On the third day of rioting Satyarthi went to the Lajpat Bhawan. People brought in relief items were starting working their in the camp. "It was here that I met advocate H S Phoolka for the first time and we joined the effort for relief and justice," he said.

His son Bhuwan who now a lawyer was five years old during the violence. He told TOI that his first memory of those days is of seeing his father and other marching in the streets raising slogans for peace and unity. "We left the house in 1987 but those memories have not gone away," Bhuwan said.

