Releasing his book on the 1984 carnage in Delhi, in which an estimated 3,000 Sikhs were killed, Singh said only action against culprits can ensure that such incidents are not repeated.
Insisting that the Sikh community can never forget the 1984 riots, Jarnail Singh, the journalist who made headlines for hurling a shoe at home minister P Chidambaram, today said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should take steps to ensure justice to the victims.
Releasing his book on the 1984 carnage in Delhi, in which an estimated 3,000 Sikhs were killed, Singh said only justice and action against culprits can ensure that incidents such as these are not repeated.
"The Prime Minister says we should forget and move forward. But forgetting is no solution, instead we should bring justice," Jarnail said, after his book 'I Accuse' was released by Darshan Kaur, a victim of the anti-Sikh carnage, whose story is also featured in the book.
Members of other communities did not stand up strongly enough to demand justice for Sikhs, Jarnail said adding, the people who voted accused MPs back to power were also to be blamed.
"Why has no prime minister in the last 25 years visited the widows' colony? Why has Manmohan Singh never drawn the courage to visit that place to offer balm to heal wounds," he asked referring to the west Delhi area that was one of the main targets of rampaging mobs in 1984.
"Its Manmohan Singh's second term in office. If he fails to do something to bring justice, history will stand tainted," he said, adding the country's leaders should visit the place as also Gujarat and Orissa to meet the people who are waiting for justice.
Jarnail had hurled his shoe at Chidambaram at a press meet in April this year protesting a CBI clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 riots case. The scribe who was dismissed from service by his newspaper following the incident, maintained that as a journalist his method of protest was "not appropriate" but the reason for his frustration was just.
"I accept it was not appropriate for me to do so, but I wanted to highlight the issue that has long been ignored," he said, adding he felt humiliated after Chidambaram said he was using the platform to further his agenda.
"While action was taken against me promptly, my services were terminated, and my PIB registration seized, which I accepted without challenging, the mass killers of 1984 are still roaming free," he pointed out.
Criticising the media of that time for not living up to its responsibility, Jarnail said he wrote this book because the incidents have not been documented well. "We know the numbers, we know what happened. But very little literature dwells on the conspiracy part, and on the human sufferings brought by the violence," he said. He also adhered to his position that he has no political leanings and said the fact that Sikhs have voted for the Congress does not mean they have forgotten the issue.
"Lack of alternatives might have been the reason, or the fact that Sikhs are a minority," he said, when asked if Congress' resounding victories in Punjab and Delhi in recent years mean that the community has forgiven the party.
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