‘Even if Sajjan Kumar is sentenced to death, we can’t get back the life we lost’: 1984 riot victims recount their pain

Sajjan Kumar’s conviction came last week in a case related to the killing of Sikh men Jaswant Singh and Tarundeep Singh during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards. The assassination was carried out in retaliation after she ordered the Army to storm the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out militants in June that year.

Over 25,000 families were reportedly displaced in the aftermath of the riots and settled in Punjab even as they continue to be haunted by the days that upended their very existence.

Seven lives gone in minutes

Bhupinder Kaur was in her 20s when the riots erupted. Along with her three little daughters, she lived with her husband Bant Singh in New Delhi’s Janakpuri area. Now 76, she recalls the day – November 2, 1984 – that shattered her world.

“Inside our home, my husband sat quietly with his brothers Shingara Singh and Kulwant Singh, their uncle Maghar Singh, and nephew Swarn Singh. Shingara’s wife Charanjeet Kaur had given birth to twins just two days ago. Without warning, a frenzied mob stormed in, breaking down the door. They dragged the men outside, doused them in kerosene, and set them ablaze,” she says.

“The horror didn’t end there. Charanjeet’s newborn twins were also thrown into the flames. In mere moments, seven lives were lost, leaving behind three widows: me, Charanjeet and Surjit Kaur,” she adds.

Bhupinder had managed to send her daughters and Charanjeet’s son to a relative’s house, saving them from the massacre. But the scars remain. “Even today, whenever I hear anything about the 1984 riots, I go numb. The scenes replay in my mind, the screams, the fire, the helplessness. We were a happy joint family. My husband and his brothers ran a taxi service. That, too, was destroyed. Our three taxis were set ablaze before our eyes.”

After spending days at a gurdwara camp, Bhupinder and her sisters-in-law found refuge in Punjab – first in Mohali, then in Ludhiana in 1985, clinging to hopes of help from the welfare society. Years passed in rented homes until they moved into flats in the CRPF Colony in 1999, which were officially allotted only in 2016.

Now, Bhupinder survives on a Rs 6,000 widow’s pension. Over the years, she has received Rs 3 lakh in compensation for her husband’s death and Rs 2 lakh from the Manmohan Singh government. Both her sisters-in-law, Charanjeet and Surjit, were also allotted flats, but they passed away in the intervening years. Charanjeet’s son, now married, lives in one of the flats.

Bhupinder’s daughters were also married off with help from the society. She is a grandmother now. She asks, “My life is a testament to the loss, survival, and the quiet pain that lingers long after the world has moved on. Can Sajjan Kumar or others understand this pain?”

No chance to bid a final adieu

At 85, Gurdev Kaur struggles to hear, but the echoes of November 1, 1984, still ring loud in her memory, the horrors of that day vivid as ever.

She had traveled to Amritsar with a few Punjabi families from Kolkata to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple, unaware that her world was about to collapse. Back in Kolkata, her husband Bant Singh, a taxi driver, was stopped by a mob. They drenched his vehicle in kerosene, set it ablaze, and watched as he burned alive inside.

Gurdev Kaur at Dugri in Ludhiana. (Express Photo by Gurmeet Singh)

By the time Gurdev returned with her three daughters and two sons, it was too late. Bant’s body had been cremated by a gurdwara granthi because no one had come forward to claim him. She had no way of knowing, no chance to bid a final adieu. “It wasn’t the age of mobile phones,” Gurdev says, her voice still heavy with helplessness.

With no immediate family left in Kolkata, Gurdev followed the other riot victims to Punjab, seeking solace in a land that could at least offer shared grief. While one of her sons was killed in an accident, the other succumbed after mistakenly consuming spray. Alone and broken, she toiled for years in Punjab’s agricultural fields, struggling to survive. In the mid-’90s, she moved to Ludhiana city and later settled in the CRPF Colony with other displaced families.

Her daughters are married and one of them lives with her, offering some comfort. But Gurdev has withdrawn from the world. Most of her time is spent in prayer at the gurdwara, seeking the peace that life never gave her. With her hearing fading, she speaks little, lost in a silence that holds a lifetime of grief.

“Every day, I pray to God for peace and relief from this life. I can no longer endure the torment of these haunting memories—the loss of my husband, followed by my sons. How much more pain must I endure? Living alone has become an unbearable burden. At some point, you become completely numb to emotions,” says Gurdev, her face devoid of any expression.

‘Kin killed, our past erased’

Gurdeep Kaur, 56, has three sons and a daughter. Back in 1984, however, she was just a young, newly married girl whose world collapsed quickly.

“We lived in Mangolpuri, New Delhi. My husband owned a factory in Kirti Nagar and a godown in Mayapuri for refrigerators and its parts. When the riots erupted on November 1, 1984, he rushed to close the factory and return home. But on his way back, he was brutally beaten and left to die on the road. We had no idea what had happened to him—no word, no trace. Days later, we found out that a kind stranger had admitted him to a hospital, but it took us six to seven agonising days to locate him.”

The horrors at home were worse. “My two brothers-in-law were dragged out of the house, tyres thrown around their necks, and burnt alive. My sisters-in-law and I ran to a gurdwara in the clothes we were wearing, locking our house behind us, thinking we would return in a few days. But by November 8 or 9, when my husband was finally found in the hospital, his brothers were gone. We returned home only to find that everything was stolen, our past erased,” Gurdeep says.

Torn by shock and despair, the family got scattered. Gurdeep’s parents took her and her injured husband to Kashmir, where he was treated for severe spinal injuries, while a sister-in-law went to her parents’ home in Dehradun. “My husband could only walk with the help of a stick. Life was never the same again.”

Eventually, they moved to Ludhiana. “We lived in rented homes for years, and I had to step up—I became the man of the house. I started making sweaters on flat machines in hosiery units to earn a living. The burden of responsibilities crushed me, but there was no choice,” she recounts.

Reflecting on the long battle for justice, Gurdeep says, “Even if Sajjan Kumar gets the death penalty, can he give us back the years we lost? The years when we cried instead of dreaming, when we bore responsibilities instead of enjoying our youth? I used to suffer from fits on remembering the ransacked house, the screams, the flames engulfing my family.”

But life slowly moved forward. “Things started improving when my first son was born in 1988. In 1999, we forcibly entered the CRPF Colony, and were labelled as illegal occupants for years until the (Parkash Singh) Badal government finally allotted us the flats in 2016. The Punjab government also gave us a booth, where my son works now. Two of my sons are married, they earn and take care of me. They know how hard life has been for their mother,” she adds.

In 2006, her husband’s health began to decline. “He remained bedridden for 14 long years until he passed away in 2020. The struggle never ended for us, but somehow, we survived,” Gurdeep says.

Their demands

The 1984 Riot Victims’ Welfare Society which earlier used to raise its demands through the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), has been in direct touch with the BJP over the last year. Last week, they honoured the party leadership by inviting them to the CRPF Colony.

Surjit Singh, president of the society, says, “We have urged the BJP leadership to establish a ‘Truth Commission’ to investigate the involvement of Congress leaders such as Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, Kamal Nath and Ajay Maken in the 1984 Sikh massacre in which many innocent lives were lost.”

Gurdeep sought the rehabilitation and resettlement of the around 25,000 riot-affected families that currently live in Punjab. “Not all have been allotted houses as promised. Many demands remain unfulfilled. Till now, 4,000 families have got houses while around 700 got booths alloted in different cities of Punjab to help them earn a living. All the affected families deserve to be allotted one house at least,” she says.