The Shiromani Akali Dal has decided to set up a seven-member committee to look into the allegation that Sikhs of the Hondh Chillar village in Rewari district, Haryana, were killed during the 1984 riots.
The Shiromani Akali Dal has decided to set up a seven-member committee to look into the allegation that Sikhs of the Hondh Chillar village in Rewari district, Haryana, were killed during the 1984 riots.
The All-India Sikh Students’ Federation (AISSF) had claimed a couple of days ago that more than 30 Sikh families in the village were killed in the wake of the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 and that the village was lying in ruins since then.
AISSF president Karnail Singh Peermohammad further said that the gurdwara in the village was being used for keeping animals. He alleged that an FIR that was registered in 1984 was lying in dumps as no follow-up action was taken against the culprits, while the properties of the “murdered Sikh families had been grabbed by others”.
Akali Dal secretary Daljit Singh Cheema said its high-power fact-finding panel would seek out information about the massacre and the role played by subsequent state governments to suppress the matter. He said the committee, headed by MP Balwinder Singh Bhunder and comprising former SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur, would submit its report within a fortnight.
The AISSF has announced that it will organise an “akhand paath” (recitation of the Guru Granth Sahib) in the village gurdwara on March 4 and has invited Akal Takht jathedar Gurbachan Singh to preside over the event.
Peermohammad expressed his intention to preserve the village as a “memorial to the martyrs of 1984”. He said the village was inhibited by more than 35 Sikh families.
“On November 2, 1984, the entire village was burnt along with its Sikh population and gurdwara. According to records of the local police, an FIR was registered for the death of 20 Sikhs from Hondh-Chillar village on the same day,” he added.
Dal Khalsa secretary Kanwarpal Singh has demanded a judicial inquiry into the killing and said the then chief minister Bhajan Lal and the police officials should be prosecuted in the case. He said properties of all the Sikh families be restored to their kin and adequate compensation be paid to them.
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