'Sting' Video of Tytler Confessing 1984 Sikh Riots Role Needs to be Verified, Says ex-Justice Dhingra

New Delhi: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots has received the sting operation video of Congress leader Jagdish Tytler confessing that his role in them, Justice (Retd) Shiv Narayan Dhingra said.

Dhingra, however, had made it clear that it would check the reliability of the sting operation video before reaching to a conclusion and that “technology makes it easy to tamper with sting videos.”

“I have received a sting operation. We need to check its reliability and it will be tested. Normally in all sting operations, the person who appears in it denies it. He usually takes the defence that it is concocted and with today’s technology it has become very easy to concoct the videos,” he told News18.

“Faces can be masked and sound can be played with. Now you can show anything. Voice can of someone and the face is of someone. We need to check if it’s forged or not,” he added.

On February 6, the chairman of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), Manjit Singh GK, released five video clippings of the "sting operation" in which Tytler ‘confessed’ of killing 100 Sikhs during the 1984 riots.

"On February 3, an unidentified youth gave a sealed envelope to a guard at my house. I found the video clippings in a pen drive and documents with the transcription," Singh said, while playing the video clips at a news conference.

Shiromani Akali Dal said that fresh disclosures against Tytler will give a new turn to the re-investigation into the 186 anti-Sikh riots cases by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT.

In 2010, Dhingra had held that a sting operation by any citizen is a legitimate exercise. The Delhi High Court resolved, on September 24, a key dilemma of journalists intending to use sting as a means of exposing corruption.

Dhingra, in his order, had then quashed the charge sheet and the summons against two journalists, Aniruddha Bahal and Suhasini Raj, who had conducted a sting operation in 2005 against MPs. The Delhi Police had charged Bahal and Raj under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), for seeking to bribe the MPs.