Lawyer to Contest Congress Leader Sajjan Kumar’s Acquittal in 1984 Riots Case

Gurinder Osan/Associated Press Congress party leader Sajjan Kumar in New Delhi on Aug. 9, 2005.

NEW DELHI â€" A Delhi court acquitted the Indian Congress Party leader Sajjan Kumar Tuesday for the murder of five men during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, but the lawyer for one of the victims said he is already planning to appeal the decision.

“This is very, very unfortunate,” said H.S. Phoolka, a lawyer who has spent more than two decades trying to prosecute politicians who were allegedly involved in the massacre of at least 3,000 Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “We will appeal against it,” he said in a telephone interview.

While Mr. Kumar was acquitted, five other men were convicted for their involvement in the murder of the same five men in the Raj Nagar area of Delhi on Nov. 1, 1984.

Balwan Khokkar, an ex-city councilor, Girdhari Lal and Captain Bhagmal were found guilty of murder, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Mahender Yadav, an ex-state legislator, and Kishan Khokkar were found guilty of rioting. Lawyers for Mr. Kumar say he was not in the area at the time of the murders.

But it was Mr. Kumar who was by far the highest-level politician on trial and who drew the most attention, and protests erupted outside the Delhi court after he was acquitted by Additional Sessions Judge J.R. Aryan.

Indian news channel CNN-IBN reported that the president of the All India Sikhs Students Federation, Karnail Singh Peer Mohammad, was arrested after he hurled a shoe at the judge inside the courtroom.

Mr. Phoolka said that the Delhi police faced political pressure to shield politicians allegedly involved in revenge attacks against Sikhs, which erupted after Prime Minister Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards on Oct. 31, 1984.

“The Delhi police have intentionally fudged records to shield him,” the lawyer said, referring to Mr. Kumar.

Raveendran/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Sikh widows, holding portraits of Congress officials and police officers who were allegedly involved in the riots in 1984, at a demonstration in New Delhi on Oct. 31, 2002.

Nirpreet Kaur, a prosecution witness, who claims that she saw Mr. Kumar inciting mobs to kill Sikhs on Nov. 1, told India Ink that after his acquittal she had lost faith in the judicial system.

“Even the Muslims got some justice after 10 years,” she said, referring to convictions last year, including of a state-legislator of the Bharatiya Janata Party, for the 2002 killing of Muslims in the state of Gujarat.

“It’s been almost 30 years but we Sikhs will never get justice in this country,” said Ms. Kaur, whose own father was killed in the riots.

Earlier this month, Additional Sessions Judge Anuradha Shukla Bhardwaj reopened an investigation into another Congress party politician, Jagdish Tytler, for allegedly inciting a mob at a Sikh temple in Delhi, on Nov. 1, 1984, where three Sikhs were killed.