’84 riots: Sajjan denies allegations

Former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, facing trial for his alleged role in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving killings, denied his role in the killing of six people in Cantonment area in the Capital. Kumar recorded his testimony in court on Monday.

Former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, facing trial for his alleged role in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving killings, denied his role in the killing of six people in Cantonment area in the Capital. Kumar recorded his testimony in court on Monday.

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Deposing before additional sessions judge Sunita Gupta, Kumar vehemently denied allegations that he had incited a mob to slaughter Sikhs. The former Congress MP said that the testimonies, given by other witnesses in this case against him, were at the instance of his political rivals.

“On the night of November 1, 1984, I did not even go to the area of Rajnagar, nor did I incite or threaten anybody,” he said.

“The allegations against me regarding this are false and have been made at the instance of my political opponents and CBI officials,” Kumar said in the court.

He emphasised that he did not even visit the area of occurrence of the crime on the fateful night.

Kumar also vehemently denied that he had provoked rioters in making emotive anti-Sikh slogans like, “Ek bhi sardar jinda nahi bachna chaiye. Jo ghar sardaron ka bachha hai, usse bhi jala do.

In sardaron ko maro inhone hamari maa ko mara hain. (Not even a single Sikh should be left alive. Burn their houses. These Sikhs have killed our mother)”.

Kumar, along with five others including former city councillor Balwan Khokkar, is is facing trial for inciting mobs against the Sikh community and having six of them killed in city cantonment area during the riots that followed the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.