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These four had burnt
two Sikhs alive, but a court had let them off
Now, Delhi High Court sends them to jail for life
Mansukh Kaur/WSN
Network
 New
Delhi: Twenty-four years ago, these men had burnt alive two Sikhs on
the roads of Delhi. Six years later, they had smiled to no end as
they walked free when a lower court in Delhi acquitted them of
charges of gruesome murder.
On
Wednesday, the Delhi High Court quashed the lower court decision
letting off the four killers and sentenced all four to life
imprisonment.
Justice S L Bhayana held Lal Bahadur, Virender, Ram Lal and Satinder
not just guilty of murder and other assorted charges under the
Indian Penal Code but also said: “It is a case where the members of
one particular community were singled out and murdered. Their
property was burnt and looted. The sentence has to be a deterrent so
as to send a message for the future.”
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 “We
are of the view that the evidence of even one eyewitness is
sufficient in itself to implicate the respondents. Here we have
four eyewitnesses who have seen with their own eyes the gruesome
murder of the deceased persons.”
—
Justice S L Bhayana of
Delhi High Court |
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The two Sikh victims were burnt alive by the four accused at
West Sagarpur
area under the Delhi Cantonment police station. Hundreds of Sikhs
were similarly killed in the national capital in October-November
1984 as state police and para military forces watched, at times even
colluded, and PM Rajiv Gandhi virtually justified the mayhem as a
lesson to Sikhs.
The court had taken cognizance of a complaint filed by Harjit Kaur
expressing her anguish of losing her husband and father-in-law 24
years ago, aggravated by the trial court’s decision to let off the
four accused for lack of evidence in 1990. She submitted that a mob
that included the accused had attacked and looted their house in
Geetanjali Park of West Sagarpur.
“We are of the view that the evidence of even one eyewitness is
sufficient in itself to implicate the respondents. Here we have four
eyewitnesses who have seen with their own eyes the gruesome murder
of the deceased persons.”
In
1990, a city trial court set free Lal Bahadur and the others,
observing that there had been a delay in the lodging of an FIR and
the name of two convicts had not been mentioned in it or in the
complaint.
“We are not convinced that the delay in filing an FIR or a delay in
recording the statement have vitiated the trial. Delay in
examination of witnesses cannot be termed fatal to the prosecution
case, where the delay is explained,” Justice Bhayana said.
Justice for the 1984 massacre victims has been extremely slow in
coming, top Congress leaders widely known to be participants in
massacres later held prominent positions, one Jagdish Tytler was
even made a federal minister but later had to be chucked out after a
government-appointed probe commission indicted him for active
participation, but Indian establishment's efforts continued to bail
out such leaders.
Top sleuthing agency was caught red-handed while trying to give a
clean chit to the minister when the media tracked down a key witness
within hours that the CBI had claimed it could not find in decades.
27 August, 2008
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