It's an inquiry being held for the second time and into an event that took place 16 years ago, but Justice Nanavati Commission has been flooded with over 10,000 affidavits.

The Commission, probing the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and other places in 1984 following Indira Gandhi's assassination, will hold its first hearing tomorrow at the Vigyan Bhawan annexe.

The Centre appointed the Commission four months ago in an unprecedented move as the previous inquiry, conducted by Justice Ranganath Misra in 1985-86, was widely alleged to have "whitewashed" the role of the then Rajiv Gandhi administration and Congress leaders in the carnage.

Another reason for the appointment of the Nanavati Commission has been the following dichotomy: While the official toll of the three-day massacre in Delhi is as high as 2,733, the number of persons actually serving sentence for murder is only six.

... The Commission ... will be recording evidence of the carnage in public ... The Misra Commission ... conducted all its proceedings in camera. Out of the 10,000-odd affidavits received by the Nanavati Commission, about 3,500 are those that had been filed before the Misra Commission. And among the fresh affidavits, about 3,000 are nothing more than claims for compensation from the victims ... There are at least 3,000 that give detailed evidence of how the massacre took place and who the culprits were. Some of the new affidavits have come from a range of prominent personalities, including Khushwant Singh, Jaya Jaitly, Madan Lal Khurana, Madhu Kishwar, Lt Gen J.S. Aurora, Patwant Singh, Justice R.S. Narula and Swami Agnivesh. These people have for the first time put on record what they had already said in public speeches or published works ... (Source: The Indian Express, 3 October, 2000)