Sikh grievance legitimate, says Chidambaram

with thanks : CNN-IBN

New Delhi: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday admitted that the Sikh community had "legitimate grievances" on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in which just a few people have been convicted.


In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai and Meetu Jain just a day after a Sikh journalist, Jarnail Singh, threw a shoe at him during a press conference in New Delhi, Chidambaram repeated what he told Jarnail on Tuesday that pronouncing guilt is for the courts to decide.


Chidambaram also said he has forgiven the Sikh journalist who works with Dainik Jagran.


"I don't think Jarnail intended to hurt me, only to provoke me," said Chidambaram.


"The Sikhs have a legitimate grievance that not enough people have been punished. But some people have been punished," he said.


He also tried to assure the Sikhs saying that the government was not trying to whitewash anything and the law would take its own course.


"Law has to take its course. Those who have been charge-sheeted… some will be punished, some may be acquitted because of technical reasons but to the best of my knowledge, no one in the government is trying to whitewash anything," said the Home Minister.


"I am not a judge. I am not a court. It is improper for me to pronounce anyone guilty or innocent," Chidambaram said.


The Home Minister said he was "100 per cent sure" there was no question of revamping his security in view of the shoe-throwing incident. "One PSO (police station officer) is one too many," he said.


He also declined to comment if the Congress would continue with Jagdish Tytler as its candidate for the Delhi North-East Lok Sabha seat.


"I cannot answer this question," he said.


He also added that he had forgotten the shoe-throwing incident.


"It was an emotional outburst by one journalist and he has quite rightly regretted it. As far as I am concerned, it is over," Chidambaram said about Singh.


Jarnail threw a shoe at Chidambaram at the Congress headquarters expressing his anger over the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) giving a clean chit to Tytler for the riots.

with thanks to :
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/sikhs-have-a-legitimate-grievance-chidambaram/89791-37.html