New Delhi: The prosecution on Tuesday (February 18) sought death penalty for former Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in which he was held guilty for murder of two persons, calling it “rarest of rare” crime.
Special judge Kaveri Baweja deferred the matter to February 21 after the counsel representing the former MP sought time to argue the matter, submitting that lawyers were abstaining from work on Tuesday in protest of the Advocate Amendment Bill, 2025.
Senior advocate HS Phoolka, who represented the complainant, supported the demand of the prosecution seeking death penalty for Kumar and sought time to argue.
Court on February 12 convicted Kumar
The court had on February 12 convicted Kumar under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including rioting and murder in a case pertains to the killings of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh in Delhi’s Saraswati Vihar area during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, which broke out following the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.
Kumar faces a maximum of death penalty and a minimum of life sentence in the case.
What is the case of the prosecution?
As per the prosecution, a large mob, armed with deadly weapons, resorted to large-scale arson, looting and destruction of properties of Sikhs to avenge the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. The mob, the prosecution said, attacked the house of the complainant and killed her husband Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh on November 1, 1984 and looted articles and set their house ablaze.
The trial court, while convicting Kumar, said that the former MP was part of an unlawful assembly and he instigated the mob, which was armed with deadly weapons, and is guilty of having committed the murder of Jaswant Singh and Tarundeep Singh.
Kumar was earlier convicted in another 1984 anti-Sikh riots case
The former MP was earlier sentenced for life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court in 2018 for his role in the killings of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar, Palam Colony and the burning of a Gurdwara and currently he is serving the sentence in Tihar Jail.
