Law

1984 anti-Sikh massacre: Delhi High Court upholds conviction of 88 people, awards them five year jail term

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The Delhi High Court on Wednesday upheld the jail-term of 88 people for their involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre that took place 22 years ago and awarded them a five-year jail term.

On August 27, 1996, a sessions court had convicted 88 out of 107 people arrested on November 2, 1984 for burning houses and violating curfew in Trilokpuri area of East Delhi. The judgment had been challenged by the convicts.

Justice R K Gauba dismissed their 22-year old appeals against conviction by a trial court and asked all the convicts to surrender forthwith to undergo the prison term, as per a report by PTI.

Senior advocate HS Phoolka, who has been representing the massacre victims in various matters, had said that according to the FIR lodged in connection with the Trilokpuri incident, 95 people had died in the rioting and 100 houses were burnt.

Only 47 of the 88 convicts, who had moved the High Court, are alive and the court had asked them to surrender soon.

On November 21, the Delhi Patiala House Court awarded death sentence to Yashpal Singh and handed another convict Naresh Sherawat life imprisonment for their role in 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The verdict was pronounced in Tihar Jail due to security concerns. The convicts were previously attacked on the premises of the Delhi court during the hearing of the case on November 15.

The two were convicted on November 15 for killing two Sikh youths in Delhi’s Mahipalpur area after the assassination of former prime minister of India Indira Gandhi.

The official records say that over 2,800 Sikhs were killed across India after Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguard on October 31, 1984. The violence spread across the country, but mostly in Delhi, saw women being raped and people dragged out of their homes to be burnt alive.

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