A Delhi court on Tuesday sentenced former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar to life imprisonment for the murder of two men during 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Bar and Bench reported.

“From the evidence on record, it has been established that the victims in the present case not only witnessed the brutal killings of their family members at the hands of the rioting mob which the convict was a part of, but they were also witness to the burning and destruction of their dwelling house and looting of their belongings,” Special Judge Kaveri Baweja of Rouse Avenue Courts said in her sentencing order.

Large-scale riots had broken out in Delhi on October 31, 1984, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, who was then the prime minister, by her Sikh bodyguards. Mobs, allegedly helped by some Congress leaders, had attacked Sikhs and torched their homes. Nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi alone.

In the case related to Kumar’s conviction, the family members of those who died – Jaswant Singh and his son Tarun Deep Singh – had alleged that a mob led by him burnt the two men alive on November 1, 1984, in the capital’s Saraswati Vihar area.

They also alleged that Kumar, who was then the Congress MP in Outer Delhi, “instigated and abetted the unruly mob” which set their house on fire.

Kumar was arrested in the case in April 2021.

The Rouse Avenue Court found Kumar guilty of the murders on February 12 but rejected the petitioner’s request for the death penalty because of “certain mitigating factors”.

“The ‘satisfactory’ conduct of the convict as per the report of the Jail authorities, the ailments from which he is reportedly suffering, the fact that the convict has roots in the society and the possibility of his reformation and rehabilitation are material considerations which, in my opinion, tilt the scales in favour of sentence for life imprisonment instead of death penalty,” the court said.

The police had filed a first information report in this case on September 9, 1985.

In 1994, the case was closed after the court held that the evidence collected was insufficient to initiate prosecution against anyone. It was reopened in 2015 by a three-member Special Investigation Team formed to re-investigate anti-Sikh violence cases.

In 2021, the Rouse Avenue Court charged Kumar with rioting and murder. It had observed that on a preliminary reading, Kumar was not only “a participant of the mob but also led it” during the murder of Jaswant Singh and Tarun Deep Singh.

This is Kumar’s second conviction linked to the 1984 riots. He is serving a life sentence in Delhi’s Tihar jail in another case.

In December 2018, the Delhi High Court had held him guilty of murder, promoting enmity between groups and defiling public property. Kumar resigned from the Congress after his first conviction.

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1984 anti-Sikh violence: As it convicts Sajjan Kumar, court sees pattern in attacks on minorities