{"id":287,"date":"2004-04-16T15:00:24","date_gmt":"2004-04-16T19:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/2004\/04\/16\/another-congress-candidate-defender-"},"modified":"2004-04-16T15:00:24","modified_gmt":"2004-04-16T19:00:24","slug":"another-congress-candidate-defender-of-1984-perpetrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/2004\/04\/16\/another-congress-candidate-defender-of-1984-perpetrators\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Congress Candidate–Defender of 1984 Perpetrators"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Manoj Mitta’s article<\/A><\/FONT>  in today’s Indian Express gives insight into the impunity granted to perpetrators of the 1984 pogroms against Sikhs.  He discusses the candidacy of Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, and RK Anand—the lawyer who defended the police and politicians in the Misra Commission, other commissions of inquiry, and court cases:<\/FONT><\/P>
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Anand was the counsel for the Delhi Administration and police in the in-camera inquiry conducted in 1985-86 by the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission, which white-washed the role of the Congress party and its leaders in the massacre that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi. <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P>
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Justice Misra has since been made a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha and his inquiry report has been so discredited that, on a resolution passed unanimously in Parliament, the Vajpayee Government appointed Justice Nanavati in 2000 to hold a fresh probe into the same matter. <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P>
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While defending accused Congress leaders, Anand once secured anticipatory bail for Kumar in 1990 even after a CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] team had actually arrested him. Anand could do so because of the bizarre development in which the CBI officials, who arrested Kumar, were locked up in his house by a mob of his supporters. <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P>
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Anand later appeared for H K L Bhagat in the trial court and the Delhi High Court. In recent months, he has been representing Tytler and another accused Congress leader, Kamal Nath, before the Nanavati Commission. The high court is currently dealing with a clutch of appeals against the acquittal of Sajjan Kumar by a sessions judge in December 2002 in that same case in which he was ‘arrested’ in 1990.<\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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Mitta also touches on Tytler’s attempts to release perpetrators from jail, claiming they were engaged in “relief work.”<\/FONT><\/P>
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Another Express article<\/A><\/FONT> highlights the response of victims to the candidacy of Sajjan Kumar, demonstrating their feelings of injustice and hopelessness:<\/FONT><\/P>
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Ever since Sajjan’s name was announced, Prem Kaur has been wondering why. She lost her husband and son in the riots and can’t decide whether she cares at all after so many years. This changes to fear, and then a flash of anger. <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P>
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‘‘It’s wrong he got a ticket. How can he be given a ticket?’’ she asks. But her sense of insignificance returns almost instantly. ‘‘What can one person do! I gave my statement against Sajjan Kumar in court,’’ she says, adding, ‘‘Nothing matters. What can one person like me do, what can I say?’’ <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P>
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Prem Kaur’s appeal is pending in Delhi High Court after Kumar was acquitted of all charges. But years have passed since Prem, who works as a peon, stepped into court. The last time was to depose before the Misra Commission. She’s tired. <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P>
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But the anger against Sajjan Kumar is very strong here. Surjan Singh, who lost his brother during the riots, says Sajjan won’t dare to visit the colony.<\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manoj Mitta’s article  in today’s Indian Express gives insight into the impunity granted to perpetrators of the 1984 pogroms against Sikhs.  He discusses the candidacy of Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, and RK Anand—the lawyer who defended the police and politicians in the Misra Commission, other commissions of inquiry, and court cases: Anand was the counsel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1472],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1472"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}