Delhi High Court (Express photo: Ravi Kanojia/File)
The CBI Tuesday informed the Delhi High Court that the probe carried out by the Delhi Police in connection with 1984 anti-Sikh riots was “tainted” and it has “forged records” to favour former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar.
The agency told a bench of Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel that Kumar was the main “conspirator of the massacre”. Senior advocate and Special Public Prosecutor R S Cheema further submitted that there was “overwhelming circumstantial evidence to show that Delhi Police personnel were silent spectators, perpetrators” in the incident.
The CBI’s submission came during the hearing of its appeal against Kumar’s acquittal five years ago in the murder of five persons in Delhi Cantonment’s Raj Nagar on November 1, 1984, during the riots that followed the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi. The CBI sought enhancement of Kumar’s sentence and opposed a plea against the court’s verdict. The alleged victim and witness Jagdish Kaur (78), who also filed an appeal against Kumar’s acquittal through senior advocate H S Phoolka, opposed Kumar’s plea and said that the Congress leader has always been in a position to influence witnesses and all attempts to prosecute him have been “blatantly thwarted”.
Kumar, in his defence, had said that there was no allegation against him of instigating a mob on October 31, 1984.
However, the CBI said that the prime witness has named Kumar by way of her affidavits before the commissions set up to enquire role of the accused during the massacre, but the trial court gave “stray findings” rejecting her testimony against the leader. The HC will resume hearing arguments on behalf of Kumar on October 22.