1984 anti-Sikh riots: Witness accuses Sajjan Kumar of threats
By IANSMonday, January 10, 2011
NEW DELHI - A woman witness in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case Monday told a Delhi court that Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and others had threatened her family for being vocal about her father’s murder in the carnage.
Nirpreet Kaur (42) said before Additional Sessions Judge Sunita Gupta that police did not record her or her mother’s statement after the killing of her father Nirmal Singh.
Her father was killed in the Delhi cantonment area in west Delhi in the riots that followed the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi Oct 31, 1984.
Kaur Jan 6 identified five accused Sajjan Kumar, Balwan, Kishan, Mahender and Captain Bhagmal who are facing trial for the killing of six people in the Delhi Cantonment during the riots.
“I had narrated the incident to the police officials who came to the Air Force (station) Gurdwara (where she and her mother had taken shelter). However, they did not write anything. My mother also narrated everything to the police officials but even her version was not recorded by them,” the witness said during her cross-examination.
To a question on what steps she had taken to ensure that culprits who were responsible for her father’s death were booked, she said she and her mother started receiving threats for being vocal.
“I and my mother had started receiving threats on account of my being outspoken or vocal about the incident and due to apprehension of danger to our life, my mother had taken me to Punjab,” she said.
“Even when I used to come to Delhi…police officials used to harass me,” Kaur said.
The witness, who remained in jail for several years after being booked in three different Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act TADA cases - two in Delhi and one in Punjab - was also grilled with regard to her joining the then banned outfit All India Sikh Students Federation.
In her statement earlier, Kaur said she was implicated in two TADA cases and remained in jail for many years.
In one case, she was acquitted while in another case she was discharged, Kaur said.
–Indo-Asia News Service
