4 decades later, ex-MP Sajjan Kumar gets 2nd life sentence in anti-Sikh riots case

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday sentenced former Congress parliamentarian Sajjan Kumar, 79, to life imprisonment in connection with the murder of two men during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi’s Saraswati Vihar area.

Special judge Kaveri Baweja of Rouse Avenue Court on February 12 convicted Sajjan Kumar for instigating a mob to kill Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh and his son on November 1, 1984.

Jaswant Singh’s family and the prosecution had sought death penalty for Sajjan Kumar, contending that his role in the 1984 riots amounted to genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The 1984 riots erupted in the wake of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, and led to the killing of at least 2,800 people in the national capital alone.

Kumar is currently lodged in Tihar jail where he is serving a life sentence handed down to him by the Delhi high court in 2018 in connection with the killing of five Sikhs in Palam Colony during the riots.

Additional public prosecutor Manish Rawat had submitted that Kumar’s previous conviction in a similar case underscored the necessity of a death sentence, as life imprisonment would be inadequate for the severity of his crime that was “against humanity” and targeted the Sikh community.

After convicting Kumar on February 12, the special court had sought a report on Kumar’s psychiatric and psychological evaluation from the Tihar administration in line with a Supreme Court order requiring courts to consider such a report in cases attracting capital punishment.

Kumar was convicted after a four-decade-long legal battle, where the court found that he instigated a violent mob to attack Jaswant Singh and Tarundeep Singh, in Saraswati Vihar, leading to their death.

In its verdict, the court pointed to the systemic failures that allowed Kumar to evade justice for decades and called the acceptance of the Delhi Police’s “untrace report” in 1994 a “grave failure of justice”. This had led to the closure of the case without notifying the complainant — Jaswant Singh’s wife.

In 2015, the ministry of home affairs constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reinvestigate the pending 1984 riot cases, including the killing of Jaswant Singh and Tarundeep Singh. The SIT’s efforts culminated in 2021 when a charge sheet was filed, formally charging Kumar with offences including murder, attempted murder, and rioting.