It was different day at great number 6 of the house Avenue Court on Tuesday. I like other days there was a crowd there the families of thousand killed in the 1984 96 rights having conjugated there to awake the sentences of former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar for his rule in the killings of two Sikhs.
As soon as the family members of the right victims heard that Kumar has received a life sentence many of them burst into tears. There were many who founded disappointed, believing that the former politicians deserved a death sentence in the case related to the murder of the father son -duo, Jaswant Singh and Tarundeep Singh, on November 1, 1984 at Saraswati Vihar in North West Delhi.
Puppy Kaur, 55, of Trilokpuri, who witnessed her father and brother being beaten and then burnt alive said. “Sajjan Kumar will stay alive, get medical care and other facilities and meet his family. But we suffer in Silence, mourning the killing of our family members. This is not even half the justice for the brutality we were subjected to. Death sentence would have been a balm on our wounds. Everything flashes before my eyes even today. The cruelty, the brutality was unmatched.”
The kin of the victims of the 1984 riots gathered at the court hoping for maximum punishment, holding play cards in Hindi English and Punjabi urging Kumar be sentence to death.
Supreme court senior advocate HS Phool ka, who has fought for the victims of the rights told TOI, “the two murders were part of the genocide of one community. Therefore, it is necessary to send a message that this country will not tolerate such killings. The court due to reports from Tihar Jail administration where Kumar is lodged at present, took his age and health conditions as mitigating factors. We will request Delhi High Court to constitute a medical board to check Kumar medical condition”.
Sheela Kaur, who was 29 years old at the time of the riots record how brutal the violence against the Sikhs was after The assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikhs bodyguards.” Sikh males were dragged out of the houses and beaten brutally. Their headgear was forcibly removed, they were dragged by the hair and set on the fire in front of us”. Claimed Kaur. “My father, brother and relatives we killed in this manner. We walked on the flesh, blood, and human remains after all this carnage.”
Unable to control herself, Bhagi Kaur, 75, wept that the 1984 killings were a wound that never heeled. “The way police and the then govt colluded with rioter. including elected representatives , had never before been seen or heard of in independent India”, she said “kerosene tanks were brought in, policeman told us to run and hide in our homes while the mob killed our husbands, fathers and sons. Sajjan Kumar should have been hanged long ago.”