Chandigarh, January 29, 2014: The Youth Akali Dal (YAD) will stage dharnas across Punjab on January 31 to demand Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi tender a public apology as well as uncover the identity of all Congress leaders who were responsible for the 1984 anti Sikh genocide following an open admission by the Congress vice president and party campaign in-charge that his party men were behind the ’84 pogrom.
In a statement here, the Youth Akali Dal office in-charge Parminder Singh Brar said the entire Sikh community as well as the nation was shocked at Rahul Gandhi’s arrogance. “Rahul has displayed the height of arrogance by brazenly admitting that Congress leaders were involved in the anti Sikh massacre but has not had the grace to apologize to the Sikh community for the same. Besides insulting the community the Congress vice president has also proven that he has scant respect for humanity”, the YAD release said.
Brar said it would go to the people on January 31 and ask them to evaluate the hypocrisy of the Congress which had indulged in symbolism by installing a Sikh Prime Minister but had been steadfast in its support to the criminals in its midst who continued to be honoured with high offices despite having the blood of innocent Sikhs on their hands. “Is this Rahul Gandhi’s idea of justice”, the YAD asked adding if Rahul did not come clean on his party’s past vis a vis the 1984 genocide the people of Punjab would understand that he believed in symbolic gestures only and did not truly empathise with the pain of the Sikh community which was systematically butchered in a pogrom planned and executed by senior Congress leaders.
He made it clear that in case Rahul Gandhi did not ask for forgiveness from the Sikh community for the wrongs done to it by his party, it would further intensify its protest programme in the coming days. It also decried efforts being made to absolve Rahul Gandhi from blame by claiming that he was only 13 years old at the time of the 1984 massacre.
“It may be so, but he his 43 years old now. He has been in a position of power in the Congress since the last ten years. He has access to the findings of various commissions, jurists as well as civil right organisations all of whom have detailed how the government led by his father Rajiv Gandhi organized the anti Sikh massacres”. The YAD said in the light of these facts, Rahul Gandhi was duty bound to tell the Punjabis as well as the nation as to what he had done to put the perpetrators of the worst massacre against a minority community in independent India behind bars”. Making it clear that the Congress party campaign incharge could not voice empty platitudes, the YAD asked him to take firm affirmative action even now to ensure justice for the victims of the 1984 massacre or stand exposed as a double faced politician making statements with an eye to electoral gains only.
The YAD also appealed to Punjabis to support it in its endeavor to seek justice for the Sikh community. “We are trying to heal the wounds of the entire community by demanding the Congress seek forgiveness for the 1984 genocide as well as punish the black sheep in its family who were behind the massacre”. The YAD said in case the Congress refused to do so; it would go to the people demanding a complete boycott of the Congress and its banishment from public life in Punjab. // punjab news live, sikh news, punjab news online, punjab news, punjab news headlines, punjab breaking news, india news, punjab news, world news,