’84 riots: Kanpur victims file fresh petition in SC

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 7

Victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots from Kanpur today moved the Supreme Court demanding setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the murders of over 125 people.

In a petition filed in the apex court, petitioners Manjit Singh GK and others demanded re-investigation of at least seven cases registered at Bazaria and Nazirabad police stations that had been closed by the police for want of evidence.

Complaining that no significant action had been taken by the authorities, the petitioners said: “There is mockery of criminal justice system as far as the case of riots victims is concerned.”

The petitioners alleged that even after 33 years there was no constructive action on part of the Uttar Pradesh Government and the police to provide them justice or to rehabilitate and compensate them.

“It’s an irony...that in the city of Kanpur, in the knowledge of the petitioners, 127 persons belonging to the Sikh community were brutally murdered/burnt to death in different police station areas. However, none of the police stations is even ready to acknowledge their deaths,” the petitioners submitted.

Petitioners’ counsel Prasoon Kumar told a Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra that no action had been taken to prosecute perpetrators of the crime.

The Bench posted the matter for hearing on April 24 along with another PIL on anti-Sikh riots in Delhi where almost 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the riots that broke out following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

The top court had on March 24 asked the Centre to produce the files pertaining to 199 cases relating to 1984 anti-Sikh riots closed by a SIT that was set up to re-investigate them. It had asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that the files should be produced before it in three weeks.

Two years after the Narendra Modi government set up a SIT to re-investigate serious anti-Sikh riots cases of 1984 that had been closed, the SIT has filed chargesheet only in four of the 59 cases taken up for further probe.

In a status report filed in the Supreme Court last month, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said 38 of the cases taken up for further probe had been closed while 17 were still under investigation.

Rohatgi had told the Bench on the last hearing that four more cases had since been closed and now only 13 remain under probe.

However, the MHA report had said: “It is being ensured that investigation is carried out expeditiously and thoroughly. No stone is being left unturned to ensure a thorough and comprehensive investigation.”

The MHA — which extended the tenure of the SIT up to August 11, 2017, last month — has also written to the Delhi Government and the Delhi High Court for designating a single court for anti-Sikh riots cases. The SIT has been notified as a police station having jurisdiction over whole of Delhi.