Observing that “no doubt investigations have been seriously lacking and have not been conducted professionally…”, a Delhi court has acquitted three former Delhi Police personnel and a private person in two 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases at Nangloi in West Delhi.
While acquitting the then SHO of the Nangloi police station, Ram Pal Singh Rana, the then Assistant Sub-Inspector Dalel Singh and the then Head Constable Karam Singh and private person Satpal Gupta, Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau blamed the victims’ family members for the fall of the case on whose sworn affidavits the city police had lodged the FIRs.
Five Sikhs — Swaroop Singh, Amrik Singh, Trilochan Singh, Sant Singh and Darshan Singh — were killed in the attacks by the rioters, whose number was in hundreds, in the wake of the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
“When these witnesses, who are eyes and ears of the Court, having themselves not supported their earlier versions, there is little that the State or the courts can do and to shift the entire blame on the prosecution and investigating agency would be highly unfair,” Ms. Lau said.
There were a total of six accused in the case. The proceedings against two of them, Prem Chand Jain and Ram Niwas, were abated as they expired during the trial.
Scores of houses of people belonging to the community were also looted and burnt by the rioters.
The prosecution charged that instead of helping the victims, the police personnel present on the spot were inciting the rioters.
The police personnel were also charged with forcing several Sikhs to have their hair cut at the local police station where they had taken shelter to escape the fury of the rioters.
Special Public Prosecution argued in the trial that the investigations had been conducted in a shoddy manner and the earlier prosecutor conducted the trial in a bad manner.
However, Ms. Lau dismissed the charges saying that “…to shift the blame on the prosecution and the investigating agency would be highly unfair”.
