Congressional briefing to commemorate victims of 1984 riots.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: Even as the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be hosted to a lunch by Vice President Joe Biden and the Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department in Washington, DC, on September 30th, the first-ever Congressional briefing on the November 1984 anti-Sikh riots will be conducted close by, on Capitol Hill, at the Rayburn House.
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the U.S. Congress will make history by hosting the first event of its kind, probing the riots that the lives of several thousand Sikhs throughout India, according to a press release issued by the Sikh Coalition.
The timing of the meet is also an attempt to give publicity to the riots that took place 30 years ago, and put pressurize on the BJP-led government to take action and give some monetary compensation to the families of the victims, and survivors of the riots.
The briefing, termed ‘Thirty Years of Impunity – The November 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms in India’ will have three panelists: Manoj Mitta, author of ‘When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath’; Harpreet Kaur/Manmeet Singh, filmmakers, Sach Productions; and Sukhman Singh Dhami, co-director, Ensaaf. The panel will be moderated by Rajdeep Singh of The Sikh Coalition.
The briefing will feature a special screening of The Widow Colony, an award-winning documentary that amplifies the voices of Sikh widows who lost loved ones during the riots and whose struggle for justice continues to this day, said the release.