Way was wrong, but Sikhs denied justice for 25 years: Jarnail Singh

The way was wrong but the issue was right, journalist Jarnail Singh said Tuesday after hurling a shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram as an expression of "deep anguish" over the clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Asserting that he did not intend to become a hero, the journalist from the daily Dainik Jagran said: "I just wanted to ask how justice can be done but he was not interested in answering the question. I do not think it (what I did) is the right way but the issue (1984 Sikh riots) is right."
"In the last Congress press conference Chidambaram had expressed happiness over the clean chit (given by the Central Bureau of Investigation to Tytler), so I wanted to ask how he can be so happy when a whole community is in deep anguish," Jarnail Singh told IANS over the telephone from the Tughlaq Road police station.


"I was just protesting. I regret what I did. But the dilly-dallying in giving justice to the Sikhs for the past 25 years was unacceptable," said the defence correspondent who also occasionally covers the Congress.

"It (giving a clean chit to Tytler) was utterly wrong. What are they (the Congress) doing? People talk about Gujarat but 3,000 people were killed on the roads of Delhi but they have not got justice for the past 25 years... It is a conspiracy," said Jarnail Singh, who fellow reporters describe as a gentle and mild person.

Asking his community to be calm, he said: "Nothing should be done to break the peace of the country... country comes first."

He was taken to the police station after the incident but was let off without any charges slapped against him.

There has been widespread discontent among Sikhs after the CBI cleared Tytler, who has been accused of inciting mobs in the riots that broke out after the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984.