Rahul Gandhi ignites 1984 riot row, now silence over Rajiv broken

Chandigarh, Feb 4: Days after

Vice President

's infamous interview with Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, a long preserved silence over the then Prime Minister

has broken now.

The then President of India Giani Zail Singh's daughter Dr Gurdeep Kaur finally broke her silence and stated that how her father had tried to contact Rajiv Gandhi and the then home minister Narasimha Rao.

Dr Gurdeep said that her father had made frantic calls to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to have the Army called in to control the mobs. Her father, according to her statement, had tried to save the Sikhs. But all his attempts to contact the PM or other officials in the PMO had gone in vain.

Former President of India kept trying to contact Rajiv Gandhi entire night

A Punjabi TV channel on Monday, Feb 3 broadcasted a interview in which Dr Gurdeep recalled the night of Oct 31, 1984 when the then supreme commander of the armed forces had felt "pain and helplessness" since he could not establish contact with Rajiv and his associates.

Dr Gudeep was quoted as saying, "I wouldn't be able to explain why he couldn't reach the PMO, but he kept trying the entire night." She also claimed that Operation Bluestar and the Sikh riots were two traumatic events of her father's life.

As it was reported earlier, on Oct 31, 1984, a crowd around the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi began shouting for vengeance with slogans such as "Blood for blood!" and turned into an unruly mob.

Later when President Zail Singh arrived at the hospital, the mob outside the hospital stoned his car. The mob began assaulting Sikhs by stopping cars and buses to pull Sikhs out of them and burn their turbans.

More than 8,000 deaths including 3,000 in Delhi were reported after the infamous riot. Delhi Police officials allegedly had helped a few central government officials to lead the mob who had attacked and killed Sikhs.

The riot was believed to have been carried out as a vengeance of Indira Gandhi's assassination. Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister after his mother's death and when asked about the riots, said "when a big tree falls, the earth shakes".

Recently, Rajiv Gandhi's son Rahul irked the Sikhs once again while saying, "some Congressmen were probably involved in the anti-Sikh violence of 1984." A group of Sikh people carried out a fresh protest in Delhi demanding punishment for those who were involved in the massacre.

OneIndia News