Click to play videoNew Delhi: Senior Congress MP Jagdish Tytler continues to declare his innocence in response to CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team (SIT) expose alleging Tytler’s involvement in 1984 Sikh riots.
Tytler claims that he was at Indira Gandhi's funeral the day of the riots, and that he has recorded evidence to establish his alibi and prove his innocence.
During the broadcast of CNN-IBN special investigation into the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots on Friday, riot witness Granthi Surinder Singh listed out several allegations against Tytler.
Singh claimed that he saw Tytler lead murderous mobs in North Delhi on November 1, 1984.
Describing the murder of three men that he had witnessed himself, Singh alleged that Tytler had incited the mob to kill people.
But Tytler rubbished the accusations saying that the allegations were “ridiculous” and “part of a conspiracy.”
However, this is not the first time that such charged have been levelled against him. Tytler has faced similar allegations earlier as well, but for the first time he told CNN-IBN that he has an alibi on CD to prove his innocence.
He claimed, “I have got 7 CDs of Doordarshan to prove that I was sitting at Mrs Gandhi's feet from 7 am to 3 pm on the day of the riots."
When then counsel for riot victims and co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi, H S Phoolka, questioned him as to why he had waited so long to make the evidence public, Tytler replied that he never handed over the CDs to the Nanavati Commission — the commission that investigated the riots.
However, he added that he was now willing to make the documented proof available to CNN-IBN.
"I will give the CDs and I will take a lie detector test,” Tytler pledged during the CNN-IBN broadcast.
However, if such tapes that exonerate him exist, Tytler may have to produce them before the CBI soon.
Whether he does or not, former Police Commissioner of Delhi, Ved Marwah, says the CNN-IBN SIT expose would help put the spotlight on the sorry state of the case.
In 23 years, ten commissions of inquiry were initiated, which subsequently failed or produced little result. Till date, only 13 convictions have been handed out for the death of 3,000 innocents in November 1984.
“Our criminal justice system is in a very bad shape. If things go on as they are, people will lose confidence,” says Marwah.
However, Director Vijay Shankar has thanked us for giving hostile witnesses a platform to speak out, but he also has a word of caution.
“It is a disturbing trend that the witnesses are retracting statement for whatever reason. This delays the justice system. But I want to thank the media for giving them a suitable platform to come out in the open. However, I would also want to give a word of caution and ask the media not to act like a judge or a prosecutor and affect the case in any manner,” says Vijay.
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