1984 Anti-Sikh Riots Convict Sajjan Kumar Dies

New Delhi: Former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, who was serving a life sentence in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, died at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital on Thursday., the day the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear his plea seeking three-week parole on medical grounds concerning his ailing wife.

In a statement, the hospital said, “the 80-year-old leader was brought to VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital by the police with altered sensorium around 11 am. He was immediately admitted, and resuscitation measures were initiated.”

The hospital said that despite providing all necessary medical and life-support measures, Kumar could not be saved and died at 12.30 pm.

A three-time Lok Sabha MP and the Congress’ former Delhi strongman, Kumar was considered a close confidant of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay Gandhi.

Kumar, who owned a bakery, began his political career as a municipal councillor from Delhi’s Nangloi in 1977. At the time, he was also general secretary of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee. He rose through the political ranks and won the outer Delhi Lok Sabha seat in 1980. He defeated Chaudhary Brahm Prakash, Delhi’s first chief minister.

The aftermath of the 1984 riots, however, brought his political career to a halt after he was accused of being criminally responsible for the 1984 violence.

He withdrew from public glare and continued contributing to the party from behind the scenes.

After a long gap, he returned to active politics, winning re-election to the Lok Sabha in 1991 and again in 2004. Kumar’s political career in its latter half was dogged by the 1984 riots.

The Delhi police had identified Kumar as a key instigator in the riots that erupted across Delhi and parts of India following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Kumar’s political career came to an abrupt end in 2009 when the Congress, bowing to political pressure, withdrew the poll tickets it had handed to him and Jagdish Tytler, another accused in the case.

He was subsequently largely sidelined by the Congress and fell out of favour.

Kumar and Mr Tytler were brought into politics by late Congress stalwart H.K.L. Bhagat. But over the years, Kumar himself groomed several Congress leaders in the national capital. These included former city minister Raj Kumar Chauhan (now AAP MLA), former legislators Mukesh Sharma, late Jai Kishen and Kanwar Karan Singh.

For over three decades, Kumar was not named as an accused in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases.

The first conviction in the 1984 riot cases came in 2018, when Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi high court, which overturned a trial court acquittal in connection with the deaths of five people in the Palam Colony area.