DELHI: The Butcher Trilokpuri. Till the morning of November 2, 1984, this description of Kishori would not have had a diabolic ring about it. After all, Kishori owned the most popular pork retail outlets in Trilokpuri, a densely populated, low income group residential suburbin East Delhi. But as that fateful day wore on and the Capital was gripped by the frenzy that matched anything that has pock marked its bloody history, Kishori used his meat cleaver for Independent India’s most horrific chapter of ethnic cleansing. Kishori has been sentenced a twice this week by additional district sessions judge S.N. Dhingra for his role in the November 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
There are another 21 murder and rioting cases pending against him and, according to the prosecution, he single handedly killed around 150 Sikhs in neighboring Kalyanpuri on that cataclysmic day. During the 11years of the trial, eyewitnesses, recounted in court how a cleaver wielding Kishori scythed down terrorized Sikhs with unhurried venom. For him, it was apparently just another day at work. Only, this time his victims were not of the porcine kind. Recalls Ladki Kaur, who saw her husband of two months, fall to the deadly swing of Kishori’s chop per on that day: “They dragged him out of the house, I saw Kishori stabbing him on the neck. The moment my husband fell down, other members of the mob poured kerosene on him and set him on fire.”
In court, witness after witness recalled in graphic detail the maniac exuberance of Kishori and the way he brought to bear his professional skills in the carnage. He would identify his target, the courts were told, and maul them with a couple of swift swishes of his cleaver. The arsonists would take over immediately, reducing the still alive victims to human torches. Ganga Devi “cannot forget the day” when four members of her family were done to death within minutes of each other. The insane crowd first pulled out her son Bhopa Singh from the house. Father of four children, Bhopa was stabbed and then set on fire. Moments later, Bhopa’s three sons, Pappu, Swaroop and Makan Singh were done to death. Ganga Devi is today a vegetable vendor in Tilak Vihar, a rehabilitation colony for anti-Sikh riot victims in West Delhi.
After hearing of Kishori’s conviction, a tearful Ganga Devi expressed her “heartfelt gratitude” to judge Dhingra.” The decision was long overdue, but I still feel relieved. Death penalty is the least that could have been ordered for Kishori.” Satnami Bai, the widow responsible for initiation of Congress leader H.K.L. Bhagat’s trial in the riots case, is emphatic that justice still eludes them. “Sending one person to gallows is not enough. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in the city within a few hours. Many more convictions are needed.” According to A.K. Tandon, the public prosecutor who secured Kishori’s conviction, while the man led the mob that killed Sikhs and burnt their houses in Kalyanpuri, the Kalyanpuri police did not react fast enough. By the time sub inspector Manphool Singh reached the spot, just one block of about 100 houses was littered with 83 bodies.
A few days later, Manphool Singh rounded up 107 persons including Kishori for the carnage. The arrests were based primarily on the account of the dead men’s family members. For the next 11 years, the mal proceeded at a snail’s pace. This was primarily because the prosecution had bunched these 107 accused as well as another 100 into two groups and these were tried separately as two cases. Significantly, Kishori was earlier acquitted by another trial court headed by S.S. Bal. But following the misjoinder of charges, he was among the many accused whom the police rearrested.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 25, 1996
