1984 anti-Sikh riots: Consider filing appeals in acquittals, says SIT

Around 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi in violence that followed the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh security guards on October 31, 1984.

The Delhi Police and authorities who handled the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases had no interest in punishing the accused, said a two-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the possibility of reopening nearly 200 cases which ended up in acquittals.

With 38 years having gone by and no new evidence, the SIT recommended the Centre to consider filing appeals in several cases that ended up in acquittals. But even there, the report found several deficiencies. T photo)

“The whole efforts of the police and the administration seem to have been to hush up the criminal cases concerning riots,” said the committee headed by former Delhi high court judge, Justice (Retd) SN Dhingra. The SIT in its report submitted to the Centre in April 2019 said, “All 199 cases were scrutinised for possibility of further action but in none of the cases further investigation is possible.”

The report of the SIT was taken on record by the Supreme Court on November 3 in a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking re-investigation into the 199 closed cases in the 1984 riots filed by former Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. The court said that it hear the case after two weeks.

Around 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi in violence that followed the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh security guards on October 31, 1984.

Pointing to the role of the police and administration, the committee, also comprising IPS officer Abhishek Dular, said, “Despite a large number of victims approaching various agencies soon after the riots and for few years thereafter, still a large number of crimes of murders, rioting, looting, arson, remained unpunished and untraced.”

Explaining the failure, the report said, “The basic reason for these crimes remaining unpunished and culprits getting scot-free was lack of interest shown by the police and the authorities in handling these cases as per law or to proceed with the intention of punishing the culprits.”

For instance, the SIT cited a case registered at Sultanpuri police station (FIR 268/84) where the Deputy Commissioner of Police clubbed 337 complaints of burning, looting, injuries, murder into one FIR. More similar complaints were added into the one FIR which ended up dealing with 498 incidents.

“In the name of investigation nothing was done,” the SIT said, adding, “One investigation officer (IO) was assigned to this case. It was humanly impossible for one officer to investigate about 500 cases, to trace witnesses of each crime, to prepare challan and to proceed in court against all the accused persons.”

Some of the FIRs were registered on basis of a note given by police official to Station House Officer (SHO) and all such cases were closed by the trial court as the information did not come from the victim. “It is obvious that these cases were registered by the police to give clean chit to certain persons,” the SIT said.

With 38 years having gone by and no new evidence, the SIT recommended the Centre to consider filing appeals in several cases that ended up in acquittals. But even there, the report found several deficiencies.

“At this stage, after the lapse of more than 25 years of the acquittals, the reconstruction of these records is also not possible. Moreover, the accused are no more alive in some cases while there are other cases where the complainant or witnesses have died,” it said.

Out of the 199 cases examined by the SIT, 54 cases were of murder involving 426 persons, 31 cases involved bodily injury to about 80 persons and 114 cases related to rioting, arson and loot. In majority cases, the case was either closed on account of the accused/witnesses remaining untraced. The SIT found out that hundreds of affidavits were filed by victims/witnesses before the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry that probed into the 1984 riots. Later many of them retracted their statements as the delayed trial left them tired and discouraged.

These affidavits were filed in 1985 and the FIRs were registered by police in the year 1991 and 1992. The trial judges threw the cases out on ground of delay in filing FIRs and recording statement of witnesses. Even the forensic evidence of dead bodies was not preserved, as a result of which many dead bodies remained unidentified till date.

The SIT had issued public advertisements soon after it was constituted by the Centre in December 2018. The purpose was to invite fresh evidence or statements from persons, but no relevant information was forthcoming.