Chandigarh: Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon and senior advocate H S Phoolka on Wednesday criticised Congress functionary Sonia Gandhi over her newly released memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, accusing her of attempting to shield the Gandhi family from responsibility for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Operation Blue Star. Dhillon alleged the book was an attempt to whitewash the role of Congress and the Gandhi family. He questioned Sonia’s account that former PM Indira Gandhi had tears of pain and regret after watching footage of Operation Blue Star’s aftermath in June 1984.“If there was genuine remorse, why was the truth suppressed for decades?” Dhillon asked in a written statement. He said the military operation at Golden Temple complex and the violence against Sikhs in Nov 1984 could not be described merely as a regrettable chapter to avoid accountability.Taking aim at Congress’s ‘Punjab Mangda Insaaf’ campaign and its proposed ‘Insaaf Yatra’, Dhillon asked how the party could speak of justice without apologising to the victims of the 1984 riots. He demanded an unconditional public apology from the Gandhi family and Congress leadership.Phoolka, who has represented victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh violence in court, also challenged Sonia’s account, particularly her description of the delay in deploying the Army in Delhi after Indira Gandhi’s assassination on Oct 31, 1984.Addressing a news conference here and pointing out that “in her memoir, Sonia writes that Army chief Gen A S Vaidya had received orders the same night but later decided against mobilising nearby units because they included Sikh soldiers, opting for troops from distant locations instead”, Phoolka termed the account contrary to official records.Citing Justice Ranganath Misra Commission, he claimed around 6,000 Army personnel were available in Delhi between Oct 31 and Nov 1, but were not deployed. He said the commission had observed that timely deployment of 5,000 troops could have saved at least 2,000 Sikh lives.He maintained that the responsibility for requisitioning and deploying the Army rested with the civil administration and questioned why no action was taken against officials responsible for the delay. Phoolka also rejected the suggestion that the violence was a spontaneous Hindu-Sikh clash. He alleged that organised mobs targeted Sikhs while the police failed to intervene. He challenged Sonia to cite any incident of communal violence in Delhi during the afternoon of Oct 31.Ends
