ULTRACURRENTS: 07/01/2010

1984 Riots: Charges Framed Against Sajjan Kumar

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?686872

July 7, 2010

A Delhi court today framed charges of murder and rioting against senior Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and others in connection with a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in which six persons were killed in Sultanpuri here.

Additional Sessions Judge Sunita Gupta, after finding prima facie evidence against the Congress leader and others, decided to record statements of witnesses from August 23.

The court had on July one had ordered framing of charges in the case.

The framing of charges paves the way for initiation of trial in a criminal case.

Besides murder and rioting, the court also framed charges against Kumar, Brahmanand Gupta, Peru, Khushal Singh and Ved Prakash for the offence of spreading enmity between two communities.

CBI had filed two chargesheets against Kumar and others on January 13 in the riots cases registered in 2005 on the recommendation of Justice G T Nanavati Commission which inquired into the sequence of events leading to the riots.

The present case relates to killing of six persons in Sultanpuri in north-west Delhi in the aftermath of the assassination of the then prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

The court has already started recording of statements of the witnesses in an another case involving Kumar and his nephew Balwant Khokkar, Girdhari Lal and Captain Bhagmal.

Meanwhile, the court recorded the statement of a witness, Lal Chand Khemani, who was said to have bought a house owned by the victim, Jagdish Kaur, in a locality here in 1993.

The witness was declared hostile by the prosecution following which he was cross-examined by the CBI.

Jagdish Kaur, a key witness in the Delhi cantonment case, could not appear before the court because of her illness.

She had lost five family members, including her husband, in the riots.