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India jails ex-Congress MP for life over 1984 anti-Sikh riots
The Delhi High Court has sentenced a senior politician from India’s Congress party to jail ‘for the remainder of his natural life’ for inciting crowds to kill Sikhs in 1984, BBC reports.
Published : 17 Dec 2018, 10:56 AM
Updated : 17 Dec 2018, 11:05 AM
The court said on Monday that former MP Sajjan Kumar had evaded justice for the crime due to ‘political patronage’.
Over 3,000 Sikhs were killed in riots following the assassination of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
The bodyguards had been angered by her decision to send the army into the Golden Temple, the holiest site in Sikhism, to confront militants.
Mobs attacked and murdered Sikhs across the country following Gandhi’s death.
More than 2,700 Sikhs are believed to have died in Delhi during the riots.
Sajjan Kumar is the highest-profile politician to be convicted over the deaths.
Though a number of cases have been filed against Kumar, the verdict on Monday was in relation to the killing of a family of five in Delhi.
Kumar had previously been acquitted by a trial court, but the verdict was challenged by India’s top investigative agency, which alleged he had been involved in a conspiracy with the police.
Jagdish Kaur, whose son and husband were among the five victims in the case, described the verdict as "a little balm applied after a long time to our scars".
"At least one high-profile accused will now go to jail," she said, according to the BBC.
Several eyewitnesses testified to Kumar inciting mobs in Delhi’s Sultanpur.
Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley welcomed the verdict.
“Sajjan Kumar’s conviction by the Delhi High Court is a delayed vindication of Justice,” he wrote in a tweet. “The Congress and the Gandhi family legacy will continue to pay for the sins of 1984 riots.”
In addition to Kumar, several other high-profile Congress politicians have been accused of involvement with the violence of the riots, including Kamal nath and Jagdish Tytler.
Both deny any involvement.
Sikhs are a religious minority in India and make up about 2 percent of the population, according to the BBC.
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