Sajjan Kumar asks for 30 days to surrender in 1984 anti-Sikh riots case

Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar on Thursday appeared before a Delhi court in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. Sajjan Kumar had moved an application before the Delhi High Court and sought 30 days’ time to surrender. He was appearing in court in another case in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. Kumar also surrendered his mobile phone before the court following its December 17 directions. The court adjourned the matter for January 22 after he said his main counsel was unavailable. Earlier, a bench of Delhi High Court comprising Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel held Kumar guilty of killing five Sikhs in Delhi’s cantonment area following the assassination of Indira Gandhi and sentenced to life imprisonment.

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"In the summer of 1947, during partition, several people were massacred. 37 years later Delhi was the witness of a similar tragedy. The accused enjoyed political patronage and escaped trial," the High Court said while reading out the judgment.

Kumar was ordered to surrender before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before the end of this year. Besides Sajjan Kumar, Captain Bhagmal, Girdhari Lal and former Congress councillor Balwan Khokhar have been sentenced to life imprisonment, while Kishan Khokkar and former legislator Mahender Yadav have been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

A day after his conviction and sentencing in the riots Sajjan Kumar on resigned from the primary membership of the party. Kumar wrote a letter to Congress president Rahul Gandhi submitting his resignation from the primary membership and all the posts of the party. "I tender my resignation with immediate effect from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress in the wake of the judgment of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi against me," he said in the letter to Gandhi.

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The case relates to the murder of five members of a family during the anti-Sikh riots in the Raj Nagar area in Delhi Cantonment on November 1, 1984. More than 3,000 Sikhs were brutally killed in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar were accused of masterminding the riots.