1984
1984 Eyewitness Gets Her Day In Court - 27 Years Later
HARINDER BAWEJA
For the first time, India's Central Bureau of Investigation ("CBI") has publicly acknowledged what it has known all along, and has called the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms a conspiracy of “terrifying proportions” involving, inter alia, then Congress Member of Parliament Sajjan Kumar and the local police.
Just how terrifying the conspiracy was was brought out in the testimony of a victim, allowed to be heard in a court for the first time in 27 years.
Nirpreet Kaur was all of 16 when she witnessed the mass killings. A happy teenager with two plaits and a spring in her step, the massacre changed her life forever.
Of the bodies strewn around the bylanes of Raj Nagar in the Indian Capital’s Delhi Cantonment, one was of Nirmal Singh, Nirpreet’s father. The girl also saw Sajjan Kumar standing in a police jeep and ordering the killing of Sikhs.
Nirpreet, an eyewitness to her father’s murder, was never questioned by the police. The court summons was sent to a wrong address. Had she known her father’s death was being tried in court, she would have given the same hair-raising testimony that she did in 2011 when the probe was entrusted to the CBI.
CBI prosecutor R.S. Cheema, while concluding his arguments in the sessions court, has spoken of the “complicity of the police and patronage of local MP Sajjan Kumar” in the mass-murder conspiracy.
Only one FIR (416/1984) was registered for the killing of 30 Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment and against unknown persons. While 10 were charged finally, Sajjan Kumar never figured as an accused.
Nirpreet’s memories of her father’s killing are still fresh. “The mob caught hold of my father and sprinkled kerosene over him. They didn’t have a match-box, and a policeman standing there said, ‘doob maro, tum se ek Sardar bhi nahi jalta’ (Shame on you! You people can’t even burn a single Sikh),” she said.
“When the mob moved a little ahead, my father jumped into a nearby nullah. Seeing my father alive, the mob returned and set him on fire again,” Nirpreet said.
Nirpreet’s home was burnt down. She and her mother took shelter at a nearby gurdwara. When she went back towards her home the next morning, she saw a mob and heard slogans.
“I saw Sajjan Kumar standing in a police vehicle telling the mob, ‘ek bhi Sardar zinda nahi bachna chaahiye - in Sardaron ko maro, inhoney hamaari maa ko maara hain’ (Don’t spare a single Sikh. Kill them all, as they have killed our mother),” Nirpreet said.
FIR no. 416 didn’t yield any justice. Sajjan Kumar was never named. The eyewitnesses never made it to court and all the 10 accused were acquitted. The police, which had conspired with the murderers, were both the investigating and prosecuting agency.
Twenty-seven years later, the same daily diaries that spoke of police inaction form crucial evidence for the CBI.
That’s perhaps the reason why Sajjan Kumar now faces legal heat in a case well chronicled ... except in the Delhi Police’s own records.
Imagine, despite eyewitness accounts, his name never cropped up in any police chargesheet.
[Courtesy: Hindustan Times. Edited for sikhchic.com]
April 29, 2012
Conversation about this article
1: Devinder Pal Singh (Delhi, India), April 29, 2012, 8:10 AM.
How damning this evidence will prove to be for Sajjan Kumar and his party only the judge can tell. We are hopeful that this should not prove to be another sham trial. At the same time it should encourage the Sikh community to take to court several others who have clearly been identified as being behind the murders. Hope Sardar Phoolka will be given free reign and resources to pursue other such cases and none of the by-standing ex-justices of the Indian Judiciary associated with the Sikhs should stand muted anymore. The divide within the community - between the government chamchaas like Sarna - and the rest of the community should no more be allow to hamper progress in this rgard. All the police personnel who were involved through acts of omission and commission should also be held accountable.
2: Tarlochan Singh Sian (Khanna, Punjab), April 29, 2012, 9:12 AM.
All those guilty of murder and mayhem in the 1984 pogroms should be brought to justice.
3: Harpreet Kaur Arora (Delhi, India), April 29, 2012, 1:42 PM.
Mohandas Gandhi was killed by a Hindu even though he himself was a Hindu; there were no reprisals. But minorities surrounded by an uncivilized majority will always suffer unfairly, be it Sikh or Christian or Muslim. The murderer Sajjan Kumar and the likes of him should be hanged, otherwise Congress should not rule any more.
4: Raj (Canada), April 29, 2012, 2:04 PM.
Justice or no justice, one thing for sure, WE WILL REMEMBER THIS. It doesn't take much time for history to turn things around. Unfortunately, their later generations will pay for this.
5: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), April 29, 2012, 4:17 PM.
They should all be brought to justice ... but they won't. It's the sad truth.
6: Harpreet Kaur (Bramton, Ontario, Canada), April 30, 2012, 9:36 AM.
What a heart rending story! It is so sad to know that even though our Guru made it mandatory to wear a kirpan, we do not listen to him. It's a state of mind that it cultivates that makes a Sardar and Sardarni! Extremist Hindus have always acted like snakes in the grass ... and we remain unprepared. jab eh gahey bipran ki reet/ main na karo(n) in ki parteet!
7: Ajay Sodhi (U.S.A.), April 30, 2012, 10:14 PM.
The murderers can never escape justice for the Guru himself is the dispenser of justice in the end.