41 years on, justice still eludes 1984 anti-Sikh riot victims: Only 13 murder convictions, 253 cases ended in acquittals
More than 2,700 members of the Sikh community were murdered in four days of violence in the Capital in the aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31.
4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Nov 1, 2025 11:22 AM IST
During the riots, more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed and only a few cases were registered in respect of these gruesome murders, large-scale burning and looting, the court said.
More than 2,700 members of the Sikh community were murdered in four days of violence in the capital in the aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Forty-one years on, the wait for justice continues for most victims of the carnage.
Just 28 cases have ended in convictions to date. Thirteen of these convictions are in murder cases – this number is less than the number of committees and commissions that were set up over the years to investigate cases relating to the anti-Sikh riots.
The Justice G T Nanavati Commission set up by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA government in 2000, one of the 14 panels that investigated the violence, found that 587 FIRs were registered in Delhi, 241 of which could not be traced. Another 253 cases had ended in acquittals.
Of the remaining FIRs, 40 were pending trial, and one was pending investigation at the time. Eleven FIRs had been quashed; in another 11, the accused had been discharged. Three cases had been withdrawn.
On February 12, 2015, in the first term of the Narendra Modi government, the Union Home Ministry constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to “re-investigate appropriately” the “serious” criminal cases that had been filed in Delhi but had been closed subsequently.
A total 293 cases that had been closed and for which untraced reports had been filed, were scrutinised. After going through case records for months, the SIT closed 199 of these cases, primarily because of “incomplete, illegible” records or the absence of witnesses.
In 60 of the remaining cases, the SIT launched a preliminary enquiry, but in the absence of evidence or witnesses, 52 of them ended in closures. Police filed chargesheets in five of the remaining eight cases. One of these ended in an acquittal, another is pending in Delhi’s Karkardooma Court.
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According to Senior Advocate H S Phoolka, who has been fighting cases for the victims since 1984, 20 cases relating to the riots are pending in courts across Delhi. One of these cases, pending in Rouse Avenue Court, is against former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar. Two appeals against Sajjan Kumar’s acquittals and one appeal against double life imprisonments awarded to him are pending before the Delhi High Court, Phoolka said.
“I started going to relief camps in November 1984 itself. The first case I took up was in December 1984… It was a case of four orphan sisters whose relatives were killed during the riots and only the minors had survived. I have been continuously fighting these cases. I was the victim’s lawyer in every major fight and before all the commissions and committees,” Phoolka told The Indian Express.
In February this year, a Delhi court sentenced Sajjan Kumar to life imprisonment in a case in which he was accused of leading a mob that burned alive one Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh in Saraswati Vihar on November 1, 1984, and looted and destroyed their houses.
Sajjan Kumar is currently in jail after he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the HC in 2018 in a case relating to the killing of five Sikhs and the burning down of a gurdwara on November 1-2, 1984. His appeal will come up for final hearing in the Supreme Court on November 12.
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On August 30, 2024, a Rouse Avenue Court ordered the framing of charges against former Congress leader Jagdish Tytler for the killing of three Sikhs during the riots near Pul Bangash Gurdwara.
The trial in this case is currently ongoing; this is one of two ongoing cases trials in Rouse Avenue Court. One 1984 riots trial each is ongoing in the Karkardooma and Saket Courts.
In the Delhi High Court, appeals filed by two convicts, one of whom received the death sentence and the other life imprisonment, are currently pending.
In July 2025, Delhi Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa moved an application in the HC seeking a direction to summon a police report which allegedly mentioned that former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath was present at the scene of a crime during the 1984 riots.
Nirbhay Thakur is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express who primarily covers district courts in Delhi and has reported on the trials of many high-profile cases since 2023.
Professional Background
Education: Nirbhay is an economics graduate from Delhi University.
Beats: His reporting spans the trial courts, and he occasionally interviews ambassadors and has a keen interest in doing data stories.
Specializations: He has a specific interest in data stories related to courts.
Core Strength: Nirbhay is known for tracking long-running legal sagas and providing meticulous updates on high-profile criminal trials.
Recent notable articles
In 2025, he has written long form articles and two investigations. Along with breaking many court stories, he has also done various exclusive stories.
1) A long form on Surender Koli, accused in the Nithari serial killings of 2006. He was acquitted after spending 2 decades in jail. was a branded man. Deemed the “cannibal" who allegedly lured children to his employer’s house in Noida, murdered them, and “ate their flesh” – his actions cited were cited as evidence of human depravity at its worst. However, the SC acquitted him finding various lapses in the investigation. The Indian Express spoke to his lawyers and traced the 2 decades journey.
2) For decades, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been at the forefront of the Government’s national rankings, placed at No. 2 over the past two years alone. It has also been the crucible of campus activism, its protests often spilling into national debates, its student leaders going on to become the faces and voices of political parties of all hues and thoughts. The Indian Express looked at all court cases spanning over two decades and did an investigation.
3) Investigation on the 700 Delhi riots cases. The Indian Express found that in 17 of 93 acquittals (which amounted to 85% of the decided cases) in Delhi riots cases, courts red-flag ‘fabricated’ evidence and pulled up the police.
Signature Style
Nirbhay’s writing is characterized by its procedural depth. He excels at summarizing 400-page chargesheets and complex court orders into digestible news for the general public.
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