Shiromani Akali Dal MP demands arrest of Sajjan Kumar

Demanding immediate arrest of Sajjan Kumar, a Shiromani Akali Dal MP today said the Delhi court's decision to reject clubbing of two FIRs against the Congress leader in 1984 riots case was a "clear and well deserved rebuff" to efforts to scuttle the trial proceedings against him.

"This is the only case in the history of the country where a man booked in a murder case is not arrested even 17 years after the FIRs were registered and the IO, the SHO and even the DCP have signed the charge sheets against him," SAD MP from Bathinda, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, said in a statement in Chandigarh.

In fresh trouble for Kumar, a Delhi court yesterday paved the way for initiation of criminal proceedings against him in another case relating to the 1984 anti-Sikh riot.

The court rejected the plea of the Delhi police to club the case involving Kumar with the ongoing trial in another case relating to the carnage.

"Why this extraordinary anxiety and keenness on part of the Delhi police to not to have an independent and separate trial against Sajjan, as directed by the court... What are the police and the Congress governments (at the Centre and in the state) trying to hide and why these dilatory tactics?" the Akali leader said.

"Having paid lip-service to morality by refusing a ticket to Sajjan Kumar in the last elections under public pressure, the Congress was pulling all stops now to save him.

"For the achievement of this goal, the party and its governments in Delhi and at the Centre had been trying to interfere with justice through delaying executive tactics," she alleged.