New Delhi: When she was just 16 years old, Nirpreet Kaur witnessed an unfathomable act of brutality: a blood-soaked mob lynched her father, Nirmal Singh, and set fire to the homes of his family and neighbors in Raj Nagar area of Delhi Cantonment. set on fire
The events of that day, 1 November 1984, and other atrocities of the anti-Sikh riots, are forever etched in Nirpreet Kaur’s memory. However, 39 years later, what haunts him even more is the elusive pursuit of justice, not only for him but for other victims, some of whom have died waiting.
According to government estimates, around 2,700 people were killed in Delhi during the 1984 riots, which erupted after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards. Many of those who survived were also condemned to wait indefinitely for all the accused to be held accountable.
As First reported by ThePrintOf the original 587 FIRs registered in connection with the riots, only 25 resulted in convictions. Of these, only a dozen were murder cases. In all, 440 accused have been convicted, with some accused found guilty on as many as seven charges.
The latest conviction was in December 2018, when the Delhi High Court upheld the acquittal of former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar by a lower court and sentenced him to life In jail for the murder of five members of the Raj Nagar family.
Although the case was not specifically related to Nirmal Singh’s murder, his daughter Nirpreet was a key witness. In its judgement, the court praised him and two other eyewitnesses for their “courage and firmness” and for “standing firm in their truth”.
Kumar has since challenged this decision in the Supreme Court, where the matter is pending.
Meanwhile, the brutal murder of Nirmal Singh – among other cases – still hangs in the balance despite signs of a breakthrough six years ago.
In 2017, a division bench of the Delhi High Court issued a show-cause notice to the Delhi government as to why a fresh trial should not be conducted for 10 men acquitted in connection with multiple murder cases in Raj Nagar on 1–2 November 1984. In which the murder of Nirmal Singh is also included.
The HC observed that the 1986 acquittals reflected “very careless and hasty disposal of cases”, the investigation lacked rigour, and even eyewitnesses were not properly summoned.
Correspondingly, Nirpreet Kaur told ThePrint that she never received the summons to appear before the trial court as it was sent to the address where her house was set on fire.
The accused under trial included former Congress councilor Balwan Singh Khokhar, former MLA Mahendra Singh Yadav (who died in 2020), Dhanraj, Mahendra Singh, Dhanpal, Ved Prakash, Shiv Charan, Ramji Lal Sharma, Vidyanand and Mahendra Singh Manan.
These 10 people were named in separate complaints by five Sikh widows in the incidents of murder and rioting in Raj Nagar on 1–2 November 1984, but the Delhi Police clubbed all five cases into a single charge sheet.
Sampurnan Kaur – Nirmal Singh’s wife and Nirpreet Kaur’s mother – was one of the five widows.
Nirpreet Kaur told ThePrint that despite the investigation by the High Court and the powerful prosecution by the prosecution, not much has happened since the court’s show cause notice.
The matter is pending in the Supreme Court since May 2017, when one of the accused, Mahendra Singh Yadav, challenged the Delhi High Court’s interim order.
Kaur is a witness in a case and has appealed to the apex court to become an intervenor, but says it has not responded.
Read also: The 4 who never gave up and succeeded in putting Sajjan Kumar in jail
kill and release
Nirpreet Kaur is now in her mid-50s, but she remembers every terrifying moment before and during the death of her father, Nirmal Singh.
On 31 October 1984, the day before the massacre, she recalls Congress councilor Balwan Singh Khokhar visiting her Raj Nagar home.
“Balwan Singh Khokhar had come to our house the previous day and was asking my father to keep his brother as a driver in his house. He actually wanted to see how many people live with us.
“He led the mob the very next day. My father confronted him and Khokhar told him that he would explain and send him away. After that they set our house on fire and we struggled for hours to survive.
The court documented the horrors that followed, how the mob beat up, tried to drown, and finally burned Nirmal Singh.
Nirpreet’s mother Sampurna Kaur later filed a complaint with the Delhi Police, which was eventually clubbed with four other FIRs filed by Sikh women. All were from Raj Nagar and were widowed during the November 1-2 attacks.
Then, in what seemed like a travesty to family members like Nirpreet, a trial court in 1986 acquitted 10 people named in this set of complaints, namely Balwan Singh Khokhar, Mahendra Singh Yadav, Dhanraj, Mahendra Singh, Dhanapal, Ved Prakash, Shiv Charan, Ramji Lal Sharma, Vidyananda, and Mahendra Singh Manan.
However, the matter did not end here.
For these and other cases, the path to “justice” was a long and complicatedAt least four commissions, nine committees and two special investigation teams have been set up over the years.
Along the way, some cases that had seemingly died and dusted have resurfaced, some almost by chance.
‘Truth has become a victim’
In 2005, the one-man Nanavati Commission set up to probe the 1984 anti-Sikh riots recommended that the CBI should reopen four cases.
One of these cases was related to the Delhi Cantonment violence, where Sajjan Kumar was accused of inciting the violence by the mob. In 2013, he faced trial in the CBI case, but was acquitted of murder charges, while five others were convicted – Balwan Singh Khokhar, Capt (retd) Bhagmal, and Girdhari Lal for the murder and riots. For Mahendra Singh Yadav and Krishna Khokhar.
Cut to four years later. In March 2017, the Delhi High Court was hearing an appeal by the CBI challenging Kumar’s acquittal along with separate appeals against the five convicts. This is when the 1986 acquittal – involving some of the same people – came to light.
These acquittals in five cases filed by Sikh widows drew sharp reactions from a division bench of the High Court, comprising Justices Gita Mittal and Anu Malhotra.
“Do these crimes fall in the category where truth has become a casualty at the hands of the investigator, the prosecutor and the trial?” the court asked.
The High Court also issued notice to the accused and the Delhi government on the question why re-investigation and re-hearing should not be ordered.
Justices Mittal and Malhotra said, “Perhaps, had these horrendous crimes been punished and the perpetrators punished in 1984, the history of crime in this country could have been different.”
“Treated as individual cases, while criminals go free, everyone else, the police, prosecutors, even the courts, fail the victims and most importantly society,” it further said.
Read also: Why it took 34 years to convict Sajjan Kumar in 1984 riots case
Summons not issued, investigation ‘verbal’
The Delhi High Court made concrete points on how some of the five cases filed by the widows were wrongly handled.
In some cases, the complainants did not receive the summons. In other cases, the summons could not be served because they were issued at addresses where houses were burnt down in November 1984.
The HC pointed this out and quoted from the acquittal judgment in a case filed by widow Jagir Kaur, who was both a witness and a complainant.
The HC pointed out that the trial court had accepted that she was “untraceable” on the basis of a summons and acquitted the accused.
“He was issued summons but he returned without service and as per reports, he is untraceable. The IO (investigating officer) has also stated that he is missing,” said the trial court judgment cited by the HC.
The HC further noted that in the five cases all the trials were completed within a period of three to four months only and the charge sheet filed in the trial court shows only “lip service” to the duty of investigation.
The judgments in the five cases, according to the bench, showed lack of compliance with the law and “haste to stifle prosecutions and close trials”.
The court also noted that it appears that no effort has been made to trace the bodies or the stolen material, and that statements from eyewitnesses, including relatives, neighbors, or any other members of the public, have not been recorded. .
Yet, six years after the court’s forceful argument for a retrial, little progress has been made.
‘Show cause notice did not yield result’
In May 2017, Mahendra Singh Yadav approached the Supreme Court against the Delhi HC’s interim order on the question of review in the 1984 riots cases.
The apex court issued notice to the Delhi Police on 8 May 2017 and a copy of the petition was served to the then Additional Solicitor General PS Narasimha, who is now a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.
Yadav’s appeal to the Supreme Court was listed 17 times between 8 May 2017 and 1 January 2020.
Within this period, in December 2018, the Delhi High Court upheld the rioting conviction of Mahendra Singh Yadav in another case and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
A bench headed by Justice S Muralidhar (now Chief Justice of Orissa HC) also reverse Upheld the trial court’s order acquitting Sajjan Kumar for the murder of five members of the Raj Nagar family and the conviction of four other accused.
Till this HC verdict on Yadav and others, the Supreme Court heard his appeal in the review case eight times.
On 19 January 2018, the court listed Yadav’s appeal for final disposal on 21 March 2018, but the matter was adjourned each time to the next three dates – 21 March 2018, 15 May 2018 and 26 April 2019.
In July 2019, Yadav and other convicts questioned Justice Muralidhar’s decision holding them guilty in the CBI case.
Issuing notice on this appeal, the Supreme Court tagged it with Yadav’s petition against Justice Mittal’s interim order on the question of re-hearing.
According to the proceedings of the case uploaded on the official website of the apex court, Yadav’s two petitions were listed eight times between July 2019 and July 2020, but no concrete hearing took place on those dates.
In December 2019, Yadav filed an application for parole, which was rejected in May 2020.
The order noted that Yadav had spent only one year and four months in jail, while he was sentenced to 10 years.
The court agreed to take up his bail plea in July 2020, but it was rejected despite Yadav suffering from COVID-19. A month later, Yadav died and the matter was not heard.
A lawyer from Yadav’s legal team, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the family members of the deceased are keen to proceed with the litigation in both the cases so that they can be exonerated of all charges even posthumously.
“We will soon move an application to implead their legal heirs as parties,” the lawyer said.
Meanwhile, in one of the five cases, the complainant Daljit Kaur has passed away.
“I never received any summons. Nothing conclusive has happened in the Supreme Court since then. Nirpreet said, Delhi HC’s show-cause notice has again yielded no result.
As of now, Yadav’s appeal is pending in the top court, more than six years after the Delhi High Court order.
(Edited by Asawari Singh)
Read also: After 38 years, Kanpur arrests 3 accused in 1984 anti-Sikh riots, hunt for 51 others