Almost 29 years have passed and tears have still not dried. This is no Bollywood story but a grim reality that over 3,000 Sikh families face, every passing day of their life. In the aftermath of Prime Minister’s Indira Gandhi’s assassination, over 3000 Sikhs were killed alone in the capital in a matter of two days.
Many ups and downs came through the case with closure reports being filed twice only to be rejected by the court. Meanwhile, the life of all concerned with the case, be it accused or the sufferer have taken a dent. The slow progress in the case means that all of them have to suffer.
Our constitution guarantees fundamental right to liberty and freedom to all its citizens and this relentless wait for justice is only making things difficult for one and all.
The situation is particularly pathetic for the Congress leaders who have been named as accused in the case. Every time they think that things will work out in their favour, tides turn against them dragging their feet firmly back into the case.
It was on September 27, 2007 that CBI had filed the closure report in the case for the first time. It claimed that the witness Jasbir Singh who testified against Jagdish Tytler, a senior Congress leader accused in the case, had migrated to United States and not traceable. It also claimed that another witness Surender Singh too did not wish to record his statement.
The joy of those accused was however short lived as the additional chief metropolitan magistrate at that time ordered CBI to re investigate the case. Infact, it happened that a two member CBI team had to travel all the way to New York to record the statements of the witnesses.
CBI eventually gave a clean chit to the accused Congress leaders as the investigating agency pointed out that statements of Jasbir Singh were not significant and what Surender Singh told them was self contradictory.
This time too, the joy of those accused turned to be short lived. Another woman who had lost her husband filed a case against Congress leaders and things were back to square one. The court once again asked CBI to begin its investigations, so that the guilty get punished and justice is ensured to those who had to suffer all these years.
The court also came down heavily on the CBI and pointed out that it was for the CBI to trace and record the statement of the witness and in no way should any laxity be done in this regard.
This statement in itself is a crude comment on the style of functioning of premium investigating agency in our country, which has always been blamed for siding with those in power. However, in this case nothing has happened despite the fact that even BJP was in power for five years. Scores of those who awaited justice have died their natural deaths and the case lingers on, even after 29 years.
