JOIN USA Delhi court hearing a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving senior Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was on Monday told by the CBI that there was a conspiracy of “terrifying proportion” between him and the police during riots.
“There was a conspiracy of terrifying proportion with the complicity of police and patronage of local MP Sajjan Kumar,” CBI prosecutor R S Cheema told District Judge J R Aryan.
Winding up the prosecution arguments, Cheema focussed on the issue of conspiracy between the accused saying it was shown in the statement of the witnesses. “From the statement of the witnesses, it has been clearly shown that a large-scale violence took place during the riots and there was huge conspiracy between all the six accused, some unknown persons and also police officials,” he argued.
Arguing on the extent of killings in the Delhi cantonment area, the prosecutor said as per police records, not even a single killing took place from October 31, 1984, to November 6, 1984. He said a former police constable, who is now a defence witness had deposed in the court that he was on duty in the area during the riots and he had not come across any report of any killing or rioting.
“But, as per G T Nanavati Commission report, the official casualty figures show that during the riots 341 people were killed, while 385 houses, 110 shops and 45 vehicles burnt in the area,” he said. The attitude of the police was to minimise the magnitude of the crime.
Kumar and five others are facing trial in the killings of six people in Delhi Cantonment area during the 1984 carnage which broke after the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.