A politician of the ruling Indian National Congress party was Thursday cleared by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)--the country's premier investigative agency--in a case related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in New Delhi following the assassination of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, reports say.

The CBI, which often works under the instructions of the top honchos of the ruling party, pleaded before the court that the case against Jagadish Tytler, the Congress Party candidate for this month's parliamentary elections from the Delhi North-East constituency and a former minister of the Federal Cabinet, be closed.

Last week, the CBI submitted its final report in a sealed cover to Metropolitan Magistrate Ram Lal Meena after examining Jasbir Singh, a California-based witness it had earlier declared non-traceable.

Jasbir Singh had stated in an affidavit that on November 3, 1984, he had overheard Tytler commenting on the killing of Sikhs in his then-constituency Sadar Bazar. He recently alleged that the CBI did not record his statement, though its members visited him in U.S.A.

The lawyer of the riot victims H S Phoolka, who has spearheaded one of the longest and most tortuous legal battles to secure justice for the victims of the 1984 riots, submitted before the court that he wanted to inspect the final report. After hearing him, the court asked the CBI to give its reply by April 9.
Reacting to the CBI's clean chit, Phoolka said: "It is upsetting. Ever since the case went to the CBI, the agency has been eager to give Tytler a clean chit. We will not give up our fight yet. Money and political muscle will not last long."

India's main opposition Hindu nationalist party, the Bharitiya Janata Party (BJP) said that the CBI clean chit to former Union minister has "shaken the faith of the common man" and "exposed the hypocrisy of Congress."

As the CBI decision was made public, hundreds of Sikhs who had gathered outside the court premises began protesting. They raised slogans against the Congress government, the CBI and Tytler as well as other senior Congress leaders like Sajjan Kumar and Kamal Nath for their alleged involvement in the worst communal pogrom in Indian history.

More than 3,000 Sikhs, including 2,000 in the national capital alone, were killed in the riots by Congress party's sympathizers and leaders that targeted Sikhs in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh police body guards on October 31, 1984, sometime after she ordered the Indian Army to storm the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the holiest of Sikh shrines.