‘Jailed for 9 yrs in false case, but I didn’t give up’

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 17

Nirpreet Kaur was only 16 when she witnessed the horrific murder of her father in Delhi Cantonment’s Raj Nagar area on November 1, 1984.

“We were a very happy family. My father Nirmal Singh and mother Sampuran Kaur loved me a lot. Our house was located next to Raj Nagar Gurdwara that was defiled and torched by the communally charged mobs on November 1, 1984,” recalls Nirpreet Kaur, one of the three witnesses against Congress leader Sajjan Kumar.

Settled in Mohali now, Nirpreet says her mother had sent her to Punjab long ago fearing for her life.

“I remember every detail of that day. Then Congress MLA Mahendra Yadav and Congress councillor Balwan Khokhar, who were known to my father, came to our house pretending to offer us security. But after my father let them in, they dragged him out. Two persons accompanying them tied my father up and Khokhar and Yadav beat him with iron rods before torching him to death,” says Nirpreet Kaur. Happy that Sajjan Kumar and other Congress leaders had been convicted for the murder of five Sikhs, besides defiling the gurdwara in Delhi Cantonment, Nirpreet says her fight for the resettlement of anti-Sikh riot survivors will continue.

Asked which part of her journey to justice was the toughest, she says the toughest part was when those who perpetrated the crime against her family began to torture her near and dear ones to intimidate her.

“They wanted me to withdraw the case. My close friend was killed and his death was shown as an accident. Then my mother was picked up and jailed. A false case under TADA was slapped against me. I spent nine years in jail, but did not go back on my word,” she says, pledging to keep helping the victims of 1984 carnage.

The HC today placed on record its appreciation for the fearlessness of witnesses Nirpreet Kaur, Jagdish Kaur and Jagsher Singh, saying it was due to their testimonials that Sajjan Kumar had been brought to justice

They wanted me to withdraw the case. My close friend was killed and his death was shown as an accident. Then my mother was picked up and jailed. A false TADA case was slapped against me. I spent nine years in jail, but did not go back on my word. —  Nirpreet Kaur, Witness 

‘Police post in charge asked the mobsters: Kitne murge bhun diye’

According to HC judgment: “Around 9 am on November 2, 1984, when Jagdish Kaur went to lodge a report at the police post, she saw that a public meeting was taking place which was attended by local MP Sajjan Kumar. She heard him declare ‘Sikh sala ek nahin bachna chahiye, jo Hindu bhai unko sharan deta hai, uska ghar bhi jala do aur unko bhi maro’”. She claimed she heard officer-in-charge of the police post ask mobsters “kitne murge bhun diye”.