Bharatiya Janata parliamentary party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra on Monday expressed surprise that prime minister Manmohan Singh [Images] was party to the decision approving the action taken report on the anti-Sikh riots that took place in Delhi and elsewhere in the country in November 1984.

"Dr Singh should have resigned if he did not feel comfortable with the action taken report. This is no report but white washing of the sins of the culprits and perpetrators of the 1984 riots that were engineered by the Congress party and its leaders," Malhotra said.

More then 4000 Sikhs were massacred in the riots following the assassination of former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi [Images].

He said the leaders of the National Democratic Alliance would call on President A P J Abdul Kalam and submit to him a memorandum asking him to intervene and ask the government to take action against congressmen Jagdish Tytler, now a minister in Dr Singh's cabinet, Sajjan Kumar, a congress legislator who represents outer Delhi, and others named in the report.

The Justice Nanavati Interview

He wondered how the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and home minister Narasimha Rao were absolved of responsibility in the crime committed by the congress wokers and their leaders.

"In Gujarat, when the riots took place, more then 200 people were killed in police firing. However,in the case of anti-Sikh riots, not even a single tear gas shell was lobbed leave alone the question of firing on the mobs that were setting people on fire and burning them alive by putting burning tyres around their necks. This was a pre-planned genocide of the Sikhs," he said.