Click to play videoNew Delhi: Just last week the CBI told the court that the two key witnesses in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case - Jasbir Singh and Surinder Singh - were inconsistent and unreliable in their statements. But it was the statements of these witnesses - who were tracked down by CNN-IBN - that prompted the sessions court to reopen cases in the first place.
"There is no witness to prove the charges against Jagdish Tytler," the CBI had stated in November 2007, closing its cases against the Congress leader. But CNN-IBN found not one, but two witnesses, able and willing to speak.
The first of these was Jasbir Singh whom the CBI failed to find in 23 years. Jasbeer Singh spoke to CNN-IBN at his current home in California.
"I saw Tytler inciting the mob outside the hospital at the Kingsway camp. He was saying, 'I have told the party that most Sikhs will be killed in my area'," Jasbir Singh stated.
Jasbir refused to testify in India, fearing for his life.
CNN-IBN also found Surinder Singh, who had testified against Tytler before the Nanavati Commission, but had then retracted his statement. Surinder Singh told CNN-IBN that he had been forced to change his original statement.
"Jagdish Tytler was shouting 'Loot them later, kill them. They have killed our mother!' People were celebrating and Tytler was also celebrating with them. When I was taken to the CBI before, his men took me away and threatened me that if I said anything against Tytler, they would kill me and my family. So I exonerated Tytler. I was helpless. No one was ready to help me," said Surinder Singh.
After CNN-IBN broadcast these interviews, a Delhi sessions court ordered the CBI to reopen Tytler's cases and record Jasbir Singh and Surinder Singh's statements.
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