Nanavati report nailed Sajjan Kumar too

Nanavati refused to buy Kumars contention that he had been acquitted in eight cases in which he had been named.

The report of the former judge also contains a cue for the trial court,which is now hearing the matter.

A technical defence taken by him Kumar that these witnesses had not named him before the police or in the courts is not a good explanation for disbelieving those witnesses, the report says. This flies in the face of the CBIs contention that testimonies of witnesses Jasbir Singh and Surinder Singh,who are in the US,cannot be relied upon.

He also pointed out that Kumar had been unable to explain why so many persons had named him and attributed to him acts like addressing meetings and inciting people to kill Sikhs and to loot and destroy their properties.

Pointing to the testimony of the witnesses who appeared before him,Nanavati wrote,In view of these facts and circumstances and considering the fact that Sajjan Kumar and Balwan Khokhar were influential persons in this area,their acquittal in criminal cases cannot be given much importance and certainly it cannot come in the way of the Commission in recording a finding on the basis of the material placed before the Commission. They were the leaders of the locality and,therefore,there is no question of their mistaken identity.

In its report,the Commission recommended to the Union Government to examine only those cases where witnesses have accused Sajjan Kumar specifically and yet no chargesheets were filed against him and cases were terminated as untraced.

Here is what Nanavati wrote in his report with regard to Kumars role in the riots: The Commission is inclined to take the view that there is credible material against Sajjan Kumar and Balwan Khokhar for recording a finding that they were probably involved as alleged by witnesses.

The judge was scathing in his censure of the police,who were alleged to have tried to shield Kumar and Khokhar.

There is ample material to show that no proper investigation was done by the police even in those cases which were registered by them. In fact,the complaint of many witnesses is that their complaints or statements were not taken by the police and on the basis thereof separate offences were not registered against the assailants whom they had named. Even while taking their statements,the police had told them not to mention names of the assailants and only speak about losses caused to them. There is also material to show that the police did not note down the names of some of the assailants who were influential persons, the report reads. The former judge then went on to name the influential persons as Tytler and Khokhar.