1984 riots case: Court allows Sajjan Kumar to call a journalist as defence witness

New Delhi, Sep 6 (IANS) Former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar’s plea to call a journalist as a defence witness was on Saturday accepted by a special court in Delhi hearing a case related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in West Delhi’s Vikaspuri.

Special Judge Digvinay Singh at the Rouse Avenue Court allowed the 77-year-old politician to present the journalist as a defence witness on September 16 and fixed the next hearing in the case on that day.

Earlier, the special court recorded the former Congress MP’s statement in which he claimed that he was being falsely implicated and that the cases against him were politically motivated.

He pleaded his innocence in connection with the alleged killings of two Sikhs, Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar Singh, in Delhi’s Janakpuri, and another incident in Vikaspuri where Gurcharan Singh was allegedly set ablaze, during the riots.

“I am innocent. I was never involved in this crime, not even in my dreams. There is no iota of evidence against me,” Sajjan Kumar said in his statement in court.

“Initially, I was not even named by any of the witnesses. Decades later, I was named. The case against me is false and politically-motivated,” he added.

The infamous 1984 riots broke out after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.

Decades later, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted on the recommendation of the Justice G.P. Mathur Committee to reopen 114 cases.

In August 2023, the trial court formally framed charges against Sajjan Kumar under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but decided to drop the murder charge under Section 302, which had earlier been applied by the SIT.

In February this year, a trial court had sentenced the former Congress MP to life imprisonment for the murder of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh in the Saraswati Vihar area on November 1, 1984, during the riots.

The SIT found that the accused was leading a mob and, upon his instigation and abetment, the mob had burnt alive the two persons and damaged, destroyed, and looted their household articles and other property, burnt their house, and also injured the victim’s family members and relatives residing in their house.

Describing the 1984 riots as one of the "darkest and most shameful" chapters in India's history, the members of the Sikh community demanded justice and urged the trial court to sentence Sajjan Kumar to death.

--IANS

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