He would have been Rajiv Gandhi's assassin had one ofthe three shots he fired at the former prime minister hit the target.

A special court on Thursday questioned the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for giving a clean chit to former union minister and Congress MP Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in which nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed.

It directed the agency to continue the probe and asked it to file its reply by Nov 29.

The agency had last month filed a closure report citing lack of evidence against the Congress leader. It had said that witnesses in this case were not available - as either they are dead or did not want to testify - to support its charges against Tytler.