JALANDHAR: A US-based human rights group has approached US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her the exclusion of Congress president Sondia Gandhi from the US. The group wants the same yardstick to be applied that was used for Gujarat chief minister Narendera Modi while denying him a US visa.
The groups claims she was involved in covering up and protecting the leaders of her party, the Congress, who were actively involved in massacre of Sikhs in November 1984.
The rights group Sikhs for Justice has sent a memo to Clinton on grounds that Sonia Gandhi’s entry and presence in the US was in violation of section 212(a)(3)(E)(ii) & (iii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and section 604 of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 which prohibit entry into the US of any individual who, outside of the US, has ordered, incited, assisted or in any way participated in the commission of any act of torture or extra judicial killing.
It has also claimed that Sonia Gandhi has not just been actively covering up the Sikh genocide and shielding her party leaders who were key players in executing the atrocities of November 1984.
The group’s memo says, “The Indian National Congress party had organized the genocide to avenge the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the party’s leader, who was murdered by her two bodyguards who happened to be Sikhs.”
Sikhs for Justice has also cited findings of the Nanavati Commission which held that innocent Sikhs were killed in a systematic manner without fear of the police apart from quoting a report of PUCL just after the “riots”.
SFJ’s legal advisor, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun – an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that excluding Sonia Gandhi would not be unique as previously Narendra Modi, a prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and chief minister of Gujarat, was denied entry into the US in connection with his role in the 2002 riots.
SFJ pointed out that victims of the 1984 riots were denied justice even as the Congress party remained in power for 23 out of 28 years after the “genocide”.
“Sonia Gandhi, who has been president of the party since 1998, has been actively following the party’s practice of impunity towards its leaders who were involved in the gross human rights violations committed in November 1984 and is is Clinton’s duty to uphold the US Constitution and its laws, and order the exclusion of Sonia Gandhi who cannot be absolved just because of India’s economic status and political relations with the United States,” the memo has mentioned.
Incidentally on March 15, a US Federal Court will be hearing a petition seeking “default judgment” against the Indian National Congress Party which has failed to respond to charges of conspiring, aiding, abetting, organizing and carrying out attacks on the Sikh population of India in November 1984.
News Source: Times of India
