Kids Corner

Above: Yet another thug from the Nehru-Gandhi family -- Arun Nehru.

1984

Senior Congress Confidant Steps Forward To Confirm Detailed Planning Of 1984 Pogrom:
Names Mass-Murderer Arun Nehru

DHIRENDRA K. JHA

 

 

 



Did disparate groups of rioters act spontaneously during the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, or was the violence orchestrated at the behest of the top leadership of the Congress?

This question has dogged Congress governments since India’s Sikh community was devastated by one the bloodiest bouts of communal carnage after Independence. The Congress has long maintained that the violence was an unplanned response to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her bodyguards who were Sikhs, on October 31, 1984.

The massacres continued until November 3.

Now, a recent statement by a senior government official of the time has added credence to the mounting evidence that the violence was orchestrated, and that the clearance came from the top.

Avtar Singh Gill, the former petroleum secretary, has stated that Arun Nehru, a cousin and confidant of Rajiv Gandhi, had given orders for Sikhs to be attacked and killed in Delhi.

Gill says that on November 1, 1984, “Lalit Suri of Lalit Hotels, who used to come and see me often, dropped by. He was the errand boy for Rajiv Gandhi, and since he often needed some work done, he was close to me. He came to me in the ministry and said, ‘Clearance has been given by Arun Nehru for the killings in Delhi and the killings have started. The strategy is to catch Sikh youth, fling a tyre over their heads, douse them with kerosene and set them on fire. This will calm the anger of the Hindus.”

GURDWARA LISTS

Gill is also quoted as saying that Suri “told me that I should be careful even though my name is not in the voters’ list, the Delhi Gurdwara voters’ list. ‘They [the rioters] have been provided this list. This will last for three days. It has started today, it will end on the third [of November].’”

Gill’s revelations also appear to put to rest the long-term speculation about Arun Nehru’s role in the violence.

“That Arun Nehru had a role in the violence has long been widely rumoured, but Gill’s statement marks the first time a senior government official has put the accusation on record. His story offers the first coherent explanation for the nature of the violence in Delhi,”

GILL AND NEHRU

Gill’s revelations have greater significance because he was often consulted by Arun Nehru on Punjab and Sikh issues.

“As one of the few Sikhs in a senior position in the government – even though I was clean shaven, he [Nehru] wanted to know my views,” the former petroleum secretary is quoted as saying.

Gill’s also explains – again for the first time – how the murdering mobs could easily identify Sikh houses.

Lawyer HS Phoolka, who is leading the legal battle to secure justice for the victims of the 1984 riots, says: “The ease with which Sikh houses were identified would make sense if Gurdwara voters’ lists were available”.

Gurdwara voter lists contain the names of people eligible to vote in the elections to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. That these lists were already available to “people in the higher ranks” is made clear by another contention by Phoolka.

DETAILED INFORMATION

“When we were collating material to present before the Misra commission [one of the several panels that enquired into the anti-Sikh pogrom], we were told by some people in the intelligence community that shortly before [the Indian Army attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar], fearing a reaction from the Sikhs of Delhi, detailed information on the community had been gathered by the government,” the lawyer is quoted as saying.

The massacres left, according to an official figure which in India is always down-played, 2,733 Sikhs dead in Delhi, most of them between November 1 and November 3, 1984. Sikhs were also attacked in several other Indian cities, including Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Bokaro in Jharkhand (then a part of Bihar), Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh and Rourkela in Orissa, as well as dozens of other cities.


[Courtesy: Scroll. Edited for sikhchic.com]
October 6, 2014

Conversation about this article

1: Kaala Singh (Punjab), October 06, 2014, 1:20 PM.

It is really sad that it took Mr. Gill 30 years to garner the courage to "reveal" this fact when Arun Nehru is dead. Sikhs have known this fact for a long time. Had this guy "revealed" this earlier, the information could have been used to prosecute Arun Nehru and hound him for the rest of his life. Arun Nehru used to travel to the US freely where he has family. As we know now, US laws allow for the prosecution of mass-murderers even if the crimes were committed on foreign soil. Sikhs in US and India could have at least given this scoundrel sleepless nights. Decoding and analyzing the November 1984 genocide further, the following facts come to light. Killings in Delhi were mostly done by the "Bhaiyya" people of UP and Bihar as slums in Delhi mostly consist of these people and in some areas by the illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators who live in some slums around Delhi. In outer Delhi bordering the state of Haryana, it was the Hindu Jats who were involved in the killings. In Eastern Delhi, bordering UP, it was the Hindu Gujjars who did most of the killing. These are criminal races who indulge in crime for livelihood even today. The chief architects of the genocide were the Kashmiri Brahmin thugs who controlled the Congress party like Rajiv Gandhi, Arun Nehru and others. Sikhs who are still stuck in India should avoid living in Delhi, Haryana, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand. In any future genocide these areas will again be the worst affected due to the socio-economic conditions of these areas and the fact that criminal races inhabit these places in large numbers and are easy hires for criminal politicians.

2: Biren Kaur (New Delhi, India), October 06, 2014, 2:46 PM.

No matter how bad this BJP/RSS gang gets -- and they are as evil as they come -- we as a community must make sure that the murdering Congress Party never comes back to power.

3: Rup Singh (Canada), October 06, 2014, 4:36 PM.

How very convenient for Mr. Gill as both Mr. Nehru and Mr. Suri have passed away. I'm curious to know if Mr. Gill has any knowledge or evidence in regards to those who are still alive and are alleged to, or had a hand in the genocide of Sikhs. Also, Mr. Gill, you chose to stay silent when you first found out what was about to happen; why speak out now? Or do you think this somehow exonerates you from the burden of holding back information that might have saved at least some lives or could have brought the guilty to justice?

4: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), October 06, 2014, 5:31 PM.

@1 Kaala ji: You are referring to the Alien Tort Law which allows people who have committed abuses abroad against individuals residing in the US to be held accountable to US courts. I think immediately after 1984 there were not many if any Sikh legal groups which could have used the law to stop these monsters from coming to the US. The majority of the Sikh legal organizations emerged after 9/11, and it is these same groups which are currently using the Alien Tort Law. On a side note, I am writing about this specific topic for my capstone, unfortunately if the US Supreme Court has its way it will be difficult to use the Alien Tort Law in a manner similar to how it has been used in the past.

5: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), October 06, 2014, 5:33 PM.

@2: Looking at the results of the recent elections in certain states, the Modi wave appears to be dying down and the Congress is making some gains. A community which makes up 2% of a population out of a billion mostly illiterate people cannot make a difference ... unless it stays united and committed.

6: T J Singh (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), October 06, 2014, 8:17 PM.

Further to my previous post related to the biography of the former PM and his wife, I felt it relevant to repost my comments under this article which brings to light another prominent Sikh in a high-ranking position with intimate knowledge of the criminal behavior on the part of the high-ranking members of the "Cowards" Party of India. It's absolutely shameful for this individual to call himself a Sikh ... What amazes me about prominent Sikhs from India is their lack of acknowledgement of facts and the genocide against their own people. Can somebody explain to me why such a mentality exists? I being born and raised in Canada harbor much anger and hatred towards the cowards of Delhi that continue to mock the genocide that was committed in 1984. Here you have, Amrit Singh, daughter of the former PM of India, who is a Human Rights Lawyer and has done extensive work to uncover the CIA's torture facilities for the sake of human rights. Yet, she has turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed in her own backyard, literally and against her own people. Would her actions be different if the Hindu mobs didn't spare her father's house that dreadful week in 1984? My question is, does such a mentality equate to the "house-nigger" phenomenon that was termed for African-Americans who turned a blind eye to the mistreatment of black slaves who worked the cotton fields for wealthy landowners in the southern parts of the US? I feel we need to have a dialogue on this issue and bring attention to such acclaimed individuals and hold them accountable for their inability to recognize this genocide and act with dignity and courage to take a position against the Hindu regime that claims to be a democracy.

7: Gurinder Singh (Stockton, California, USA), October 07, 2014, 3:30 AM.

Lalit Suri is also dead. Gill should have revealed this earlier. Arun Nehru and the Gandhi family had parted ways during the last years of Nehru's life. He should have come out in the open and made a confession and amends.

8: G C Singh (USA), October 07, 2014, 10:36 AM.

Avtar Singh Gill chose to disclose this "secret" AFTER Arun Nehru died. We knew this truth on the very first day the massacres were happening throughout India. As I have mentioned on this forum many times, the scheme to conduct the genocide was already planned by Indira Gandhi much BEFORE Operation Blue Star. Sonia Gandhi in her interview with Vir Sanghvi admitted that Indira knew she would be killed and "instructed" them what do do in that event. Rajiv Gandhi's cousin Arun Nehru -- a paint salesman by profession, was part of what was known as the 'kitchen cabinet' with Rajiv's other Doon school chums like Arun Singh and Satish Sharma, an Indian airlines pilot and Kashmiri pundits Fotedar and Kao had planned the attack on Harmandar Sahib. When President Zail Singh's motorcade reached AIIMS where Indira's dead body was taken, Arun Nehru's goons pelted stones on him. He was pressured (some say with threats of murder) to swear-in Rajiv Gandhi as the leader of the country instead of observing the protocol of making the senior most minister as the acting Prime Minister. As soon as Rajiv Gandhi was sworn as prime Minister in the evening around 6 pm, then the killings, looting, burning and rapes started immediately on a large scale with military precision. Arun Nehru was sitting in Prime Minister's home-office and was directing the entire operations and in fact was the de facto Home Minister. The mass slaughter of the Sikhs stopped after three days, just before the arrival of foreign dignitaries. The general elections were announced 6 months prematurely and Rajiv Gandhi, a novice politician whose only qualification was the massacre of his own countrymen, was given a thumping majority by our Hindu brothers and sisters. RSS/Modi have followed the same formula, first in Gujarat and now on a national scale to win a majority resulting in Modi becoming the Prime Minister.

9: Kaala Singh (Punjab), October 07, 2014, 12:43 PM.

Arun Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi later became sworn enemies of each other, presumably due the differences over sharing the booty from the defence deals and Govt contract scams. Arun Nehru later joined the BJP and contested elections unsuccessfully against the Congress. The fact that the BJP allowed a known mass murderer to contest on its ticket should tell us that there is no difference between the Congress and BJP as far as the Sikhs are concerned.

10: R Singh  (Canada), October 10, 2014, 5:26 AM.

The spate of desecrations of gurdwaras and birs and attempt at involving the Sikhs in 'riots' are ominous signs on the horizon. Will the Sikhs in the BJP cadres stand up for Sikhs? Has anyone investigated the role of the RSS cadres in 1984? The leaders of this cabal also clamoured for an attack on Darbar sahib, and did nothing to punish the culprits when they came to power. Let us not fall for labels or someone else's politics. After all, these kind of bureaucrats were friends of the murderers first, and of Sikhs afterwards.

11: Kaala Singh (Punjab), October 11, 2014, 3:06 AM.

One wonders what kind of political leadership the so-called world's largest secular democracy has . fraudsters, scamsters,mass-murderers, rapists, looters, freeboters and dacoits are all in the government and running the country as they please. Has anybody seen a country in the civilized world where 10,000 innocent people are done to death in its capital without being stopped by the police and nobody is punished for the carnage. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi are touted by the lemmings as "leaders" and this is what is taught to children in the schools.

Comment on "Senior Congress Confidant Steps Forward To Confirm Detailed Planning Of 1984 Pogrom:
Names Mass-Murderer Arun Nehru"









To help us distinguish between comments submitted by individuals and those automatically entered by software robots, please complete the following.

Please note: your email address will not be shown on the site, this is for contact and follow-up purposes only. All information will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Sikhchic reserves the right to edit or remove content at any time.