Apologise to Sikhs, sack Pitroda over 'hua to hua' comment: BJP to Cong

New Delhi: The BJP on Friday demanded that Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi apologise to the Sikh community “with folded hands” for 1984 riots, immediately sack Sam Pitroda and accept that the Congress “got people massacred for selfish reasons”.

Addressing a press conference where Nirpreet Kaur, a witness to the attacks, was present, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that the language used by Pitroda is comparable only to the “insensitive, inhuman” remark made by Rajiv Gandhi who in the aftermath of the “genocide” said that “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes.”

Patra was referring Pitroda’s remark “hua to hua” (what has happened has happened) in reference to the anti-Sikh riots. Pitroda is the chief of Indian Overseas Congress.

“If someone should apologise for this it is the former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the present president Rahul Gandhi who should come in front of the Sikh community with folded hands and remove Sam Pitroda from the party. They should also accept that the Congress got people massacred for its selfish gains,” said Patra at a press conference here.

The riots were a pre-planned attack on the community, Patra alleged, adding that Congress workers took out the names of Sikh residents from ration cards, school registration forms and other documents and their their houses were marked with ‘S’ thus facilitating the “pogrom” that took place later.

“‘Hua to hua’ is not just a sentence, this is shamelessness, it is insensitive, inhuman. Thousands of people were massacred on the streets of Delhi and when questions are raised on the issue, then Sam Pitroda’s reaction is 1984 – ‘hua to hua’,” said Patra.

He said that the community had been denied justice for 34 years and in 2015 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi constituted an SIT, one of the accused was sentenced to the death while the other was given a life sentence.

BJP national secretary R P Singh said that he holds Rajiv Gandhi responsible for the attacks and said that the what happened in 1984 was a “politically well thought out”.

“This was the strategy of projecting Sikhs as anti-nationals and to get majority votes,” he said.

Kaur, who was merely 16 years old when the riots took place, said that no one from the Congress’ first family apologised for the suffering of her community.

“Neither the father ever apologised, nor did the son. Not even the mother. Manmohan Singh, whose wife lost one of her brothers who was burnt to death, apologised. So they got someone who actually suffered the attacks to apologise on their behalf,” she alleged.