Haryana CM Nayab Saini (File photo)
NEW DELHI: Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini on Monday announced that family members of those who were killed in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots would be given appropriate jobs in the state government.Family members of those who lost their life in 1984 anti-Sikh riots will be given appropriate jobs in Haryana government. 121 people from the state were killed in the riots, reported news agency ANI.The 1984 anti-Sikh riots were one of the darkest chapters in India’s post-independence history. The riots erupted after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for Operation Blue Star, a military action earlier that year to remove militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar.Following her death, mobs, often armed with voter lists and political backing, targeted Sikhs in Delhi and several other cities. Over 3,000 Sikhs were brutally killed, their homes and businesses looted or burned, and many women faced horrific violence. Eyewitness accounts and later investigations indicated the role of Congress leaders in instigating and organising the violence, while the state machinery largely failed to act. The riots left deep scars on India’s social fabric, fostering alienation among Sikhs and fueling militancy in Punjab. Justice for victims has been slow, with many cases dragging on for decades.Rajiv Gandhi, who was sworn in as Prime Minister soon after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, made a controversial remark about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots during a rally at the Boat Club in New Delhi on 19 November 1984, Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary. He said, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.”The statement was widely interpreted as an attempt to justify or downplay the violence against Sikhs, though Congress later maintained he was speaking metaphorically about the impact of his mother’s death on the nation.
