With the Supreme Court ordering fresh probe by a new special investigation team (SIT) into 186 cases related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the ruling Congress is facing criticism from Opposition parties.

While the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Aam Aadmi Party have demanded action against the Congressmen involved in these riots, Punjab Cabinet minister Rana Gurjit Singh on Saturday faced flak for denying his party’s role in the same.

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Speaking to reporters in Jalandhar on Friday, Singh said the Congress was not responsible for the riots. “Though our party was in power at that time in Delhi, that doesn’t mean it was responsible for the riots,” he said. Criticising the minister’s statement, AAP said it was a ‘white lie’.

The irrigation and power minister had betrayed the Sikh community by giving a clean chit to the Gandhi family which had engineered the 1984 anti-Sikh genocide, solely to retain his ministry as it was slipping away from his hands due to allegations of corruption, the SAD alleged.  In a statement here, former minister Maheshinder Singh Grewal said it was inconceivable that any Sikh could deny Congress hand in the massacre which was well documented and established.“The entire Sikh community in the world knows that the Gandhi family and its acolytes perpetrated the worst massacre in Delhi and forty other towns and cities in the country. Congress leaders led mobs which burned Sikhs alive. Victim families have recorded their testimonies and named leaders like Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler. By denying all this Singh is not only doing a grave dis-service to the Sikh community, but also insulting the memory of 8,000 Sikhs who were butchered by Congress goons,” he said.

Asking Singh to apologise immediately to the community and rise above politics to echo the stand taken by the entire Sikh world, Grewal said this was the only way  the minister could wash away the “sin” committed by him.