On 1st November, Padma Shri awardee Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India and former Punjab MLA Harvinder Singh Phoolka (HS Phoolka) alleged that he received a threatening email from Khalistani terrorist organisation Sikhs For Justice (SFJ). In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Phoolka said that in an email received by him addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, SFJ threatened to eliminate him and journalist Sanjay Suri.
I didn’t know that Kamal Nath is so powerful. Threat to eliminate main witness against him Sanjay Suri is given by Sikhs for Justice.
— H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) November 1, 2023
I have received an email purportedly from @SikhsForJustic threatening to eliminate me, which I don’t care. But strangely threat is also to…
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Phoolka had contested Lok Sabha elections in 2014 on Aam Aadmi Party ticket. He wrote, “I have received an email purportedly from Sikhs For Justice threatening to eliminate me, which I don’t care. But strangely threat is also to eliminate Sanjay Suri, a journalist, who is main witness against Kamal Nath”.
Notably, Suri is the main witness against Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath, who is accused of playing a pivotal role in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. Suri reportedly gave evidence of the burning of Rakabganj Gurdwara and the murder of two Sikhs during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Kamal Nath is the CM face for Congress in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections 2023.
Phoolka said he was not aware that “Kamal Nath was so powerful” that the Khalistani terrorist organisation Sikhs For Justice would issue a threat to eliminate the main witness against him For Justice. He also expressed his confusion as eliminating Suri would help Kamal Nath, which would, in the end, deny justice to the Sikh victims.
to benefit Kamal Nath. I request @narendramodi PM to whom this letter is addressed, to investigate if this letter is genuine. Also request PM to take up with UK govt to take care of security of Sanjay Suri, presently correspondent of CNN in UK. Also Kamal Nath’s link with this.
— H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) November 1, 2023
“Sikhs are grateful to him, how can Sikhs threat him. It’s to benefit Kamal Nath,” Phoolka added.
He further requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to initiate an investigation into the letter to check if it was authentic. Furthermore, he requested PM Modi to ensure the UK government takes care of the security of Sanjay Suri as he is presently working as a correspondent for CNN in the UK. Suri has not released any statement on the matter. Phoolka did not post any screenshots of the email. OpIndia could not independently verify the threat.
Sanjay Suri recounted his encounter with Kamal Nath during the anti-Sikh riots of 1984
In his book ‘1984 – The Anti-Sikh Riots and After‘, author and journalist Sanjay Suri recounted his personal experience on the afternoon of 1st November 1984, a day after the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two Sikh guards. Suri mentioned that he was taken aback when unexpectedly encountering Kamal Nath outside the Rakabganj Sahib Gurdwara in Delhi. Notably, two Sikhs were burnt alive outside the Gurdwara during the riots.
On a fateful day, Suri recalled, the crowd was raising slogans for revenge, saying “khoon ka badla khoon” (blood for blood) for the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Rakabganj was the closest Gurdwara to the Trimurti Bhawan, where the mortal remains of Gandhi were placed. Suri described a disturbing scene where security forces, including CRPF, allegedly stood mute while the aggressive crowd advanced. What particularly troubled Suri was that it appeared Nath was controlling the crowd, and the police refusal to intervene.
While Suri submitted an affidavit and raised testimony in front of the Nanavati Commission, there were almost no attempts to fully explore the questions raised by him. “The Nanavati Commission noted that my affidavit had not been ‘very clear’,” he noted in the book. Suri emphasised that his role was to report only and not to “nail” Kamal Nath. Later, Nath claimed that he was trying to control the situation. However, his actions seemed to imply a level of influence and authority over the crowd.
Suri further suggested that Nath’s presence at the scene, along with his ability to influence the crowd, raised suspicions about his connection to the party members involved in the violence against Sikhs. He pointed out that the mob had most likely been mobilised and organised by the Congress party, given the scale and uniformity of the mobilisation. “Who could possibly have fed that level of mobilisation at such speed? The mobilisation, the uniformity, had to have had an organisational push behind it. The organisation behind such mobilisation could not but have been the Congress; it is, after all, no surprise that those most eager and available to have been brought there would have been workers from the party whose leader had been assassinated,” he wrote.
