US court summons Congress party over 1984 riots

Party has been accused of "conspiring, aiding and abetting" organised attacks on the Sikhs by a Sikh-rights group in the US

Betwa Sharma / PTI | March 2, 2011



A US court has issued summons to India's Congress party in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, acting on a Sikh rights group's petition charging it with "conspiring, aiding and abetting" organised attacks on the community.

A federal district court in New York issued summons to India's ruling party in a class action lawsuit filed by Sikh organisation 'Sikhs for Justice' which has offices in New York and India.

The Sikh group has charged the Congress with "conspiring, aiding, abetting and carrying out organised attacks on Sikh population of India in November 1984".

A statement issued by 'Sikhs for Justice' said that the killings could not be described as riots and they were not confined to Delhi alone but were led by Congress leaders in 18 states and 100 cities.

"The gravity, scale and specially the organised nature of these attacks was concealed by the Indian governments' portraying them as 'November 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots of Delhi,'" Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, legal advisor to Sikhs for Justice said.

According to the government of India's record a total of 3,296 Sikhs were killed while a total of 35,535 claims for deaths and injuries were received throughout India, the group said.

The proceedings are still at the pre-trial stage here in New York.

Comments

 

Other News

Inching closer to a trade deal with America

The cooperation between India and the United States goes back quite a time. We need to relegate that era to the backburner when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited US in the times of president Dwight Eisenhower and called the American let-off of 10 million dollars in defence aid to Pakistan as a “gun w

Manch vs Musk: Forty people and a foreign billionaire

About forty people walked the roundabout on Teen Murti Marg to the gate of Chanakyapuri police station, a distance you could cover in under a minute, on Friday to protest against Elon Musk’s Starlink. The walk was called by the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch. Nobody joined them on the way, and nobody seeme

Master sculptor recalls the making of the Shankaracharya statue

The Golden Chisel: The Story Behind the Making of Ram Lalla  By Seethalakshmi S. and Rahul Nandan Rupa Publications, 168 pages, Rs 395  

Mumbai’s missing affordable homes

Mumbai’s real estate market keeps growing, yet homeownership remains out of reach for much of its population. Three experts – urban researcher Hussain Indorewala, urban planner Vidyadhar Phatak and developer Kamlesh Thakur of NAREDCO Maharashtra, agree that simply constructing more apartments

Rubio denies US foreknowledge of Starlink restrictions in Ukraine

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has said he was unfamiliar with the Wall Street Journal report suggesting Elon Musk had decided to throttle Starlink services in Ukraine, but rejected claims that Washington had ordered the restrictions to pressure Kyiv.   “There was no

Can AI change India’s breast cancer story?

Breast cancer has become a public-health challenge in India. The greatest opportunity is to find cancers earlier. Artificial intelligence (AI) is opening a new era in breast cancer detection. AI systems can analyse mammograms and other breast-imaging studies, identify subtle abnormalities and assist radi

Upcoming Conferences



-->

Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter