Compliance Report on Compensation to 1984 Sikh Genocide Victims Not Filed

It is more than 39 years since the 1984 anti-Sikh genocide, but 10 states that were greatly impacted by the carnage are yet to file a compliance report to the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) regarding victim compensation. In Oct 2023, NCM directed chief secretaries, home secretaries, and minority department secretaries of Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, and eight other states on action taken by them for granting compensation. NCM Iqbal Singh Lalpura said that though states had filed the Action Taken Report (ATR), there was no compliance report. ‘Without the compliance report there is no point in filing ATRs. We talk to the states every month and tell them to expedite the process of paying compensation. We are collecting information,’ he said. ‘In Jammu and Kashmir, five people died in the riots, but authorities there say they do not have the address of the families. States have to coordinate among themselves and compensate the victim families. In Delhi, 2,732 Sikhs were killed in the genocide. Of that, only 14 of their kin have got jobs so far,’ he added. States must comply with orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs dated 16 Jan 2006 and 5 Dec 2014 for granting compensation and relief to victims. Lalpura earlier brought it to the notice of the states that 22,000 families migrated to Panjab from other states and had to be paid a rehabilitation grant as well. Note: these are official numbers; for circumstantial reasons they are vastly underreported (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 4, Story 8).