• Hardeep Singh Puri and Rekha Gupta meet 1984 riot victims in Delhi.
• Both leaders enquire about survivors’ experiences and well-being.
• BJP holds marches as political exchanges over the anniversary continue.
• Puri describes the killings as organised genocide and questions the spontaneous-violence narrative.

GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 8th Nov: Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta met 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims at Puri’s residence in Delhi on Saturday, speaking to survivors and enquiring about their experiences and well-being.

Visuals from the meeting showed Gupta consoling one of the victims as the two leaders interacted with those affected by the violence.

The meeting comes amid a political exchange between the BJP and the Congress-led INDIA bloc over events marking the anniversary of the 1984 violence. The BJP organised marches across several parts of the national capital, accusing the Congress of holding a political rally on the anniversary.

Earlier, on November 1, Puri participated in a march from Hari Nagar Depot to Tilak Nagar Metro Station. Gupta, Delhi BJP president Harsh Malhotra, Delhi ministers Manjinder Singh Sirsa and Ashish Sood, MPs, MLAs, party functionaries and members of the Sikh community also took part.

Puri accused the Congress of hurting Sikh sentiments by holding a political demonstration on the anniversary of the violence. Rejecting the term “riots”, he described the 1984 killings as an organised “genocide” and a “crime against humanity”. He cited official figures of 2,733 deaths in Delhi and 3,325 across the country.

The Union Minister also questioned the account that the killings were a spontaneous reaction to public anger following the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

“Great efforts have been made to claim that what happened, the violence that occurred in Delhi, was spontaneous, driven by public anger. This statement is simply not true,” Puri said.

He also recalled the attack on the car of then President Giani Zail Singh near AIIMS in late October or early November 1984, while he was returning from an official tour of Africa. Puri described the incident as the first target of the violence.