Riots In India

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Spin-masters are buring midnight oil...


Folks... check this out:
Rediff today
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Late prime minister <b>Rajiv Gandhi had taken only 30 seconds to clear the deployment of army to control widespread anti-Sikh riots in 1984 in Delhi</b>, his then principal secretary <b>P C Alexander</b>, said in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
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Post by Rajesh from our archives

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://indianexpress.com/full_story.php?...t_id=53788

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1984 L-G blames Rajiv Govt for delay in Army deployment


SIKH MASSACRE: At 11 am, I asked for Army...<span style='color:green'>P C Alexander put it off until evening: P G Gavai</span>
MANOJ MITTA

NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24: Twenty years after he was forced to resign as Lt Governor of Delhi owning ‘‘moral responsibility’’ for the 1984 Sikh carnage, P G Gavai has blamed the Rajiv Gandhi government for the delay in calling in the Army.

Not just this. In his affidavit filed to the Nanavati Commission last week, Gavai claims he underlined this same point in 1986 to the Ranganath Misra commission but it gave the Rajiv Government a clean chit and suppressed Gavai’s damning testimony.

Ironically, the Misra report did go on to admit that ‘‘at least 2,000 people’’ would not have been killed had the Army been called in the morning of November 1, the day after Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

This is exactly what Gavai had asked for, he now says in his affidavit, at a meeting held on November 1 at 11 am by when the killings had already begun.

That meeting, chaired by P C Alexander, then Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, was attended, among others, by then Home Minister P V Narasimha Rao and Army chief Gen A S Vaidya.

Gavai, who is based in Mumbai now, claims to have ‘‘stressed’’ the need to call the Army ‘‘at once, without waiting even for a moment.’’

Since ‘‘every one present at the meeting’’ agreed with his suggestion, Gavai expected immediate action. ‘‘Nonetheless, Dr Alexander ruled that the police commissioner and the Army authorities should meet in the police commissioner’s office at 5 pm,’’ Gavai’s affidavit says.

Gavai also claimed he had mentioned this meeting to the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission in the course of an in-camera sitting in the judge’s chambers. Yet, to Gavai’s ‘‘horror,’’ the details he provided like ‘‘the important meeting with Dr Alexander, etc just do not find even a vague mention’’ in the Misra Commission’s report.

The Army eventually entered two of the six police districts of Delhi in the evening of November 1 and the remaining districts in another 24 hours. It was effectively deployed throughout the Capital only in the morning of November 3 and the situation was brought under control by the same afternoon.

H S Phoolka, senior counsel for the Carnage Justice Committee (CJC) representing victims, says that in the next sitting of the Nanavati Commission on Thursday, he will request that Alexander be summoned to explain why he had not allowed Gavai to call the Army when the violence had just begun.

Incidentally, Alexander is now an ‘‘independent’’ Rajya Sabha MP elected two years ago with the support of the BJP and Shiv Sena. Gavai’s claim to have asked Alexander for permission to call the Army right in the morning of November 1 is contrary to the Misra Commission’s finding that the Rajiv Gandhi Government had ‘‘already given clearance for the Army being called and the delay in taking the decision and making the requisition was of the Delhi Administration—squarely of the Lt Governor and Commissioner of Police.’’

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