NB: In the period October 31 till November 2, 1984, mass violence in Delhi following the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi resulted in the deaths of thousands of Sikhs resident of Delhi. The official figures were just under 3000; but many believe this to be an understatement. In the links beneath this article, there is more material on state enabled violence in India, regardless of poltical regime and regardless of whether the murders were directed at masses of people or were allegedly targeted killings to eliminate persons deemed inconvenient by the powerful people in the establishment of the day. I shall keep adding to this material; and readers interested in following the nature of Indian criminal justice may check it from time to time.
This is my essay written for the 30th anniversary of 1984; and this is a brief history of the Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan, set up by Delhi’s citizens in the aftermath of the carnage; to combat communalism. DS
Shekhar Singh
Forty-one years ago, Delhi burned, not from a foreign enemy, but from within. Between October 31 and November 7, 1984, mobs roamed the streets hunting down Sikh men, torching homes and setting gurdwaras ablaze. Officially, 2,733 Sikhs were killed in the capital even as survivors say the toll was over 3,000. Over four decades later, most of the “guilty” still walk free.
Of the 650 cases registered, chargesheets were filed in 362, but only 39 ended in conviction. Nearly 300 cases collapsed for want of evidence, witnesses or police will. Now, barely 20 cases remain alive, dragging on in Delhi’s trial courts or pending appeal in the high court. The rest have been swallowed by the system’s silence.
The numbers tell a story of a democracy that forgot its dead. This week, as the city marks the anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the violence that followed, the courts are still sifting through yellowing files and fading memories — a justice process that has moved slower than time itself.
Two names have come to define this unfinished reckoning — Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler. Kumar, a former Congress MP, was convicted in December 2018 for the murder of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar, Delhi Cantt. The Delhi High Court described the riots as “crimes against humanity” and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He remains in Tihar Jail, but his appeal is still pending before the high court seven years later. Earlier this year, the court recorded his statement in another riot-related case, a chilling reminder that the past continues to breathe inside Delhi’s courtrooms.
Tytler, another former Congress MP, was chargesheeted by the CBI in 2023 for allegedly instigating a mob that killed three men at the Pul Bangash gurdwara on November 1, 1984. In August 2024, a Delhi court ordered the framing of charges against him under sections of murder, rioting and promoting enmity. He is out on bail, with his trial expected to begin later this year.
These two cases, still in motion four decades later, represent the handful that survived the wreckage of failed investigations and political interference. The Nanavati report in 2005 laid bare how police investigations collapsed almost by design. “The police had prepared a kind of format for the aggrieved persons for submitting their complaints… but it mainly called for information regarding looted or burnt properties. It did not contain any column regarding names of the victims or offenders,” the report said.
“The chargesheets were mostly couched in general terms… several accused, in some cases numbering 100 or more, were put up together to stand trial even though allegations against them were totally different. The result was acquittal due to utter confusion and want of marshalling of evidence,” it added.
The report also indicted senior officers for “abdicating responsibility of supervision and control,” recommending disciplinary action against errant officials. None were punished. Even the Ahuja Committee, which investigated the scale of killings, noted that most deaths occurred on November 1 and 2, when mobs roamed unchecked for nearly 48 hours as the police looked away.
The courts have repeatedly tried to breathe life back into the pursuit of justice. In 2018, the Supreme Court constituted a special investigation team (SIT) with retired IPS officer Rajdeep Singh as its member to reopen 186 closed cases. A handful were revived, including those against Tytler and Kumar, but most crumbled again as witnesses had died, memories had faded and files had vanished.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court directed the Delhi High Court to submit progress reports on all suo motu revision petitions in the riot cases, observing that “delay itself amounts to denial of justice in crimes of such magnitude.” But for survivors, hope has long been replaced by exhaustion. The government maintains that the judicial process must take its course. But the survivors’ patience has already taken theirs. What began as an investigation into murder and arson has become an indictment of the state’s conscience. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/only-39-convictions-in-650-cases-justice-eludes-1984-riot-victims/#google_vignette
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41 years on, justice eludes 1984 riot victims: Only 13 murder convictions, 253 acquittals
More than 2,700 members of the Sikh community were murdered in four days of violence in the capital in the aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Forty-one years on, the wait for justice continues for most victims of the carnage.
Just 28 cases have ended in convictions to date. Thirteen of these convictions are in murder cases – this number is less than the number of committees and commissions that were set up over the years to investigate cases relating to the anti-Sikh riots. The Justice G T Nanavati Commission set up by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA government in 2000, one of the 14 panels that investigated the violence, found that 587 FIRs were registered in Delhi, 241 of which could not be traced. Another 253 cases had ended in acquittals….
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मध्यमार्ग का अवसान: दिलीप सिमियन (EPW, November 2014)
Book Review: ‘Who Killed Justice Loya’ Delves Into The Many Unanswered Questions
Apoorva Mandhani: Judge Loya’s Confidants Died Mysterious Deaths
Book Review: ‘Who Killed Justice Loya’ Delves into Many Unanswered Questions
Four years and counting, Umar Khalid languishes in jail without bail or trial
EMERGENCY Archive / When the Supreme Court struck down Habeas Corpus
Gauri Lankesh, Dr Umar Khalid… For the state, Umar Khalid & others are worse than heinous criminals
Ex-Arunachal CM’s Explosive Suicide Note that the government refused to probe (2017)
The Caravan archive: Malegaon Acquittals, NIA’s Decline, and Sangh Parivar Terror Links
A LEGACY THAT IS BEST FORGOTTEN
Misusing a judicial observation to unearth temples under mosques will lead to disaster
Constitutional principles go for a toss in the criminal law of search and seizure
Tell me why; and how to read a sentence
Gujarat court acquits former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in custodial torture case
Rahul Pandita: What I learned from G. N. Saibaba
The Sole Reason Behind Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad’s Arrest Is That He Is a Muslim
Father Stan Swamy To Posthumously Receive Human Rights Honorary Award At Geneva Today
Patricia Mukhim: Nagaland’s people deserve neither AFSPA nor gun culture
Here are SC, HC judges with political pasts. Gowri’s unconstitutional views were the problem
Mumbai: St Xavier’s College cancels Stan Swamy lecture after ABVP protests
Terrifying implications of the SC’s Staines Judgement
Four Indian intellectuals who were murdered for their ideas (2013-2017)
Four years and counting, Umar Khalid languishes in jail without bail or trial
दिल्ली माइनस उमर ख़ालिद | Delhi minus Umar Khalid
A Brief History of the Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan; Movement Against Communalism (1984-1993)
BOOKS & Reports:
Manoj Mitta; Modi and Godhra – The Fiction of Fact Finding (2014)
H. S. Phoolka & Manoj Mitta: When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath; (2007)
Niranjan Takle: Who Killed Justice Loya (2022) (This book has disappeared from all online markets. A recent review may be read here; two comments maye be read here and here.
Waiting for justice : a report : National People’s Tribunal on Kandhamal, 22-24 August 2010
After the truth-shower 