Washington: The California State Assembly passed a resolution requesting the US Congress to formally recognise and condemn the 1984 anti-Sikh violence in India as genocide.
The resolution was moved by Assembly member Jasmeet Kaur Bains on March 22 and passed unanimously by the state assembly on Monday. Jasmeet Kaur is the first elected Sikh member of the state assembly.
The resolution was co-sponsored by Assembly member Carlos Villapudua. Ash Kalra, the lone Other Hindu member in the Assembly, also voted in favour.
The resolution said that the Sikh community in the US has not yet recovered from the physical and psychological trauma of the riots. The resolution urges the US Congress to formally recognise and condemn the November 1984 anti-Sikh violence as genocide.
The resolution further states that the ‘Widow Colony’ in New Delhi is still home to Sikh women who have been attacked, raped, tortured and forced to look after the exclusion, burning and murder of families and who are still demanding justice against the perpetrators.
In a statement, Pritpal Singh, coordinator of the American Sikh Caucus Committee and other SIKH bodies, expressed gratitude to the members of the California state assembly for introducing the resolution and passing it.
Earlier in 2015, the California Assembly had passed a resolution calling the anti-Sikh violence a genocide.
Violence erupted in Delhi and other parts of the country after the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. The violence that followed left over 3,000 Sikhs killed across India, mostly in the national capital.