How did the Vajpayee Government come to appoint the Justice G.T. Nanavati Commission?
A. The idea took birth at a meeting held in Delhi on November 1, 1999 commemorating the 15th anniversary of the carnage. Senior advocate H.S. Phoolka, who has been the main crusader all through on the carnage issue, floated the idea of a fresh judicial inquiry. Soon the proposal acquired political weight as the Akali Dal, a component of the National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre, came out in support of it. As it happened, nobody opposed the idea remarkably, not even the Congress party, which is widely accused of engineering the 1984 massacre to harness the Hindu vote in the elections held within two months. Parliament passed a unanimous resolution in this regard, even though there is no precedent to a fresh judicial inquiry into a matter already probed by another commission of inquiry. For the record, the Government reeled off statistics to substantiate the need for a fresh inquiry. It pointed out that though 2,733 persons were admitted to have been killed in the carnage
