Sajjan Kumar acquitted: Delhi Court gives verdict on 1984 ant-Sikh riots in Janakpuri-Vikaspuri violence case

On Thursday (Jan 22), a Delhi court acquitted former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in a case related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh pronounced order in the case that alleged Kumar of inciting violence in Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas. The reasoning for the said order is awaited.

Earlier in August 2023, a court charged Kumar with rioting and promoting enmity, but he was discharged of murder and criminal conspiracy offences. And in February 2015, two FIRs were registered against Kumar based on complaints of violence in the Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas during the Sikh riots. This was filed by a special investigation.

Details of the FIR:

• The first FIR was filed over the violence that broke out in Janakpuri, in which two men were killed. Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar Singh were pronounced dead on November 1, 1984.
• The second FIR mentioned the case of Gurcharan Singh, who died on November 2, the same year, after allegedly being set ablaze in the Vikaspuri area of the national capital.

Kumar, who has now been acquitted, was awarded life imprisonment on February 25, 2025, by a trial court. This was in a case linked to the killings of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep in Saraswati Vihar. The court had noted, as reported by news agency PTI, though the killings of "two innocent persons" in the case were no less an offence, it was not a "rarest of rare case" warranting the imposition of the death penalty.