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Veteran
Congress leader HKL Bhagat dead
New
Delhi: Former Union Minister and veteran Congress leader
HKL Bhagat, who was in coma for the last two years, passed away
on Saturday, at Apollo Hospital here. He was suffering from
Alzheimer's disease, in which patients rapidly lose their memory
and brain functions. Doctors at the Apollo Hospital today said
that Bhagat's brain was completely paralysed and that he was
not able to do anything except breath. Bhagat was the Union
Information and Broadcasting Minister in Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi's cabinet. He was also one of the prime accused in the
1984 Anti-Sikh riots case, was was heard by the Justice G.T.
Nanavati Commission of Inquiry.
The
anti-Sikh Riots took place after the assassination of Indira
Gandhi on October 31, 1984 by two of her Sikh guards acting
in the aftermath of Operation Bluestar. Over the next four days
nearly 3000 Sikhs were massacred in systematic riots planned
and allegedly planned by Congress leaders like Bhagat, Jagdish
Tytler, Dharamdass Shastri and Sajjan Kumar, activists and sympathizers.
The then Congress government was widely criticized for doing
very little at the time, if not acting as an conspirator, especially
since voting lists were used to identify Sikh families. The
then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi allegedly
made a statement "When a big tree falls, the earth is bound
to shake" on the Sikh carnage. His widow and current President
of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi officially apologized in
1998 for the events of November, 1984. The most affected regions
were neighborhoods in Delhi. The riots were a key antagonist
in the subsequent Punjab insurgency. According to the official
figures, the largest number Sikhs, about 1,086, were killed
in Bhagat's East Delhi constituency, during the riots. One witness,
Satnami Bai, said Bhagat had led the rioters. Later on, she
turned hostile and failed to identify him. Another witness,
Darshan Kaur, stuck to her deposition despite threats to her
life and identified Bhagat. But the case collapsed in 1995 and
Bhagat was acquitted on the ground that in a riot case, conviction
cannot be based on the word of just one witness. In 2003, Bhagat
was acquitted by the court in all the riot cases, including
the Satnami Bai case. The Nanavati Commission, in it's report
this year had acquitted him saying "no purpose is served in
investigating him further because of his advanced age and declining
health".
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