NEW DELHI: In a landmark judgment, a Delhi court Aug. 27th convicted 93 persons for their role in the November 1984 riots that broke out here in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. All these persons have been sentenced to seven and a half years of rigorous imprisonment. Additional Sessions Judge S. N. Dhingra who passed the order in the morning came down equally hard on Police and Government officials, maintaining that they were the “real culprits” and investigations should be conducted against them. These persons.

according to the court, include the then Lieutenant Governor Gavial, Commissioner of Police Kaul, Additional Commissioner Neeraj Kumar, Jaat, Seva Dass and R.D. Malhotra and their political master.”

It is for the first time that such a large number of people have been convicted for a crime which was equally big in its magnitude. Over 2800 Sikhs were massacred in Delhi during the riots. Observed Dhingra in his 92 page order, “the accused persons should be given such punishment which should take into account the protracted trial which has been faced by them. Simultaneously, it should also take into the heinousness of the crime.” Incidentally, all the 93 convicts are the residents of Trilokpuri, a resettlement colony in east Delhi that bore the brunt of the riots. Observes Dhingra that 400 people alone were killed in Trilokpuri and police had recovered 95 bodies in Block no. 32. Passing severe strictures against the then administration, police and their “political masters,” the court observed: “The above accused persons have been convicted but those who engineered the riots, the politicians, and made these convicts as their tools, are still at large.” “The then SHO Shoorvir Singh Tyagi showed his ‘shooryirta’ by getting the innocent persons killed. His successor Satvir Singh Rathi showed his ‘love for truth’ by suppressing the truth and eliminating whatever possible evidence against the culprits. Other .police officers of Kalyan Puri police station faithfully followed their instructions for not taking any action. Manphool Singh, the investigating officer of the case did not conduct any raid. Satvir Singh Rathi under whose supervision the investigation remained for 20 days did not register cases on the basis of the statements of the victims.

Article extracted from this publication >>  August 28, 1996