Delhi: Hardeep Singh Puri, CM Rekha Gupta meet 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Saturday met victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots at Puri's residence in Delhi.

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Saturday met victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots at Puri's residence in Delhi. During the visit, both Puri and Gupta spoke to victims and enquired about their experiences and well-being. Visuals showed Delhi CM Rekha Gupta consoling one of the victims.

This comes as the ruling BJP mounted a counter-offensive to the INDIA bloc's "Chalo Delhi' rally with a march in several zones of the national capital to remember the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, accusing the Congress of holding a political rally on the anniversary of the violence. Earlier on November 1, Union Minister Puri participated in a march held from Hari Nagar Depot to Tilak Nagar Metro Station, where Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Delhi BJP president Harsh Malhotra, Delhi Government Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Ashish Sood, MPs, MLAs, party functionaries and a large number of members of the Sikh community and residents of Delhi also participated.

Puri accused the Congress of deeply hurting Sikh sentiments by staging a political demonstration on the anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh violence. Rejecting the term "riots," Puri classified the 1984 tragedy as an organised "genocide" and a "crime against humanity," citing official figures of 2,733 deaths in Delhi and 3,325 nationwide.

He questioned the official narrative that the 1984 anti-Sikh killings were a spontaneous outbreak of anger following former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination. “Regarding what happened in Delhi 42 years ago, there is quite a lot of information available. But I feel that, ‘the mind plays tricks,’ great efforts have been made to claim that what happened, the violence that occurred in Delhi, was spontaneous, driven by public anger. This statement is simply not true," he said.

Puri recalled that the first target of the targeted violence on late October/early November 1, 1984, was India's 7th President, Giani Zail Singh, whose car was attacked near AIIMS as he returned from an official tour of Africa. (ANI)