The Grilling of Giani Surinder Singh

The is a follow-up to yesterday's post about CBI taking statements from these witnesses to Jagdish Tytler's murderous actions during the 1984 antiSikh pogrom in Delhi. It seems that maybe the CBI is more interested in sisrespecting these Sikh brothers and their testimony than in hearing the truth. What a surprise!

CBI grills key witnesses in US
Questioning biased, allege Sikh bodies
Kulwinder Sandhu
Tribune News Service

Moga, December 24
Sikh organisations of New York protested outside the office of the Consulate-General of India in Manhattan, alleging that CBI officials had put “unwanted” questions to Giani Surinder Singh, a key-witness in the anti-Sikh riots case, on the second day of the questioning today. They alleged that the investigating agency was trying to protect the Congress leaders involved in the riots of 1984.

A two-member team of the CBI is in the US to record the statements of Giani Surinder Singh and Jasbir Singh, key witnesses in the case.

Giani Surinder Singh had given a statement before the CBI yesterday that senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler was directly responsible for the massacre of three Sikhs in Gurdwara Pulbhangash at Azad Nagar in Delhi on November 1, 1984, during the riots.

Talking to this correspondent on the phone from New York today, Surinder Singh had alleged that the questions asked by the CBI team gave him a feeling that the investigating team was trying to portray him as the killer.

“I have already stated that Tytler led the mob to kill Sikhs, but the CBI team has asked me whether I know or remember the names of people in the mob and what kind of clothes or shoes they were wearing,” he said.

He said: “The CBI team should have rather asked him how, when and where had he seen Jagdish Tytler instigating the mobs? How did the killings of the Sikhs took place?”

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based attorney and legal adviser of Sikh organisation “Sikhs for Justice”, who accompanied Giani Surinder Singh to the Consulate-General’s office, in an e-mail sent to The Tribune, said Giani Surinder Singh had earlier also recorded his statement in the Chandigarh office of the CBI early this year. As such the question of any pressure from any Sikh organisation did not arise.

The team had not yet recorded the statement of Jasbir Singh and would probably question him tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Karnail Singh Peer Mohammad, president of the All-India Sikh Students Federation, alleged that the way CBI team had questioned Giani Surinder Singh on the second day, it appeared that the agency was working under the pressure of Congress-led UPA government.