Security of witness against Tytler reinstated

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 18

In a relief for prime witness Abhishek Verma in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case against former Congress MP Jagdish Tytler, a Delhi court today ordered security cover for the witness for a month starting today.

The court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate HS Bhalla also allowed the witness through his counsel HS Phoolka to move the Delhi High Court for full relief in the matter. Passing the order, the court said the cops had not considered a letter the court had received in late 2019 issuing death threats to the witness and his counsel.

The magistrate said he had received the letter and forwarded it to Delhi High Court, which later marked it to Delhi Police Commissioner for appropriate action. Observing that he hoped the Delhi police would take cognisance of the death threat to Verma and review the threat perception to him, the magistrate directed the cops to provide the witness with security for four weeks during which he had been allowed to petition the HC, which ordered protection for him in the first place in 2017 and also petition the witness protection committee.

The Delhi police, while withdrawing the security, had said that the HC had directed security to Verma until his lie detector test was concluded and that the same had been done. Tytler is the second top Congress leader suspected for his role in 1984 riots after Sajjan Kumar, who stands convicted for life and is serving jail time for his involvement in the riots.

In the Tytler case, the CBI had filed three closure reports in 2007, 2009 and 2014. But Delhi’s Karkardooma courts rejected the CBI closure report on December 4, 2015, on the protest petition by Lakhwinder Kaur, who lost her husband in the Gurdrawa Pul Bangash attack. The court asked the CBI to continue its probe.

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