1984 anti-Sikh riots: Delhi court acquits Sajjan Kumar in Vikaspuri, Janakpuri violence case

Delhi court acquitted former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case linked to Janakpuri and Vikaspuri violence. Charged with rioting earlier, Kumar remains jailed, serving life imprisonment in other riot-related murder convictions, as appeals await orders pending

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday acquitted former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in a case related to inciting violence in Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas in the national capital during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh orally pronounced a brief order acquitting Kumar. A reasoned order is awaited.

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In August 2023, a court had charged Kumar with rioting and promoting enmity, while discharging him of murder and criminal conspiracy offences.

In February 2015, a special investigation team registered two FIRs against Kumar based on complaints of violence in the Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas during the riots.

The first FIR was over the violence in Janakpuri, where two men — Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar Singh — were killed on November 1, 1984.

The second FIR was registered in the case of Gurcharan Singh, who was allegedly set ablaze on November 2, 1984, in Vikaspuri.

Kumar, who is presently in jail, was awarded life imprisonment on February 25 last year by a trial court in a case regarding the killings of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh on November 1, 1984, in the Saraswati Vihar area.

It had said that though the killings of “two innocent persons” in the case were no less an offence, it was not a “rarest of rare case” warranting the imposition of the death penalty.

The trial court had also said that the case at hand was part of the same incident and could be seen as a continuity of the incident for which Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court on December 17, 2018.

The high court had found him guilty of having caused the death of five people during a similar incident of rioting in the Palam Colony area, post the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

According to a report of the Nanavati Commission — constituted to probe the violence and its aftermath — there were 587 FIRs filed in Delhi in relation to the riots that saw killings of 2,733 people. Of the total, about 240 FIRs were closed by police as “untraced”, and 250 cases resulted in acquittal.

Of the 587 FIRs, only 28 resulted in convictions, in which about 400 people were convicted. About 50 people, including the former MP, were convicted of murder.

Kumar, an influential Congress leader and an MP at the time, was accused in a case related to the killing of five people in Delhi’s Palam Colony on November 1 and 2, 1984.

He was awarded life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court in the case, and his appeal challenging the punishment is pending before the Supreme Court.