1984 anti-Sikh riots | Delhi court orders framing of charges against Jagdish Tytler
Special CBI judge Rakesh Siyal said there was sufficient evidence against Tytler, a former Union minister, to put him on trial
Forty years after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a Delhi court on Friday (August 30) ordered framing of charges for murder and other offences against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in a case related to the killing of three people in north Delhi's Pul Bangash area during the violence.
Citing a witness, the CBI had said in its chargesheet that Tytler came out of a white Ambassador car in front of Gurdwara Pul Bangash on November 1, 1984 and instigated a mob by shouting “kill the Sikhs, they have killed our mother”. Three Sikhs were then killed by the mob.
‘Sufficient ground to proceed’
Special CBI judge Rakesh Siyal said there was sufficient evidence against Tytler, a former Union minister, to put him on trial. “Sufficient ground is there to proceed against the accused person,” the judge said.
The court ordered framing of charges for several offences, including unlawful assembly, rioting, promoting enmity between different groups, house trespass and theft.
The court has listed the matter for September 13 when the judge is likely to ask Tytler whether he pleads guilty to the charges levelled against him. If Tytler pleads not guilty and claims trial, the judge will formally frame the charges against him.
CBI’s eyewitness accounts
In concluding arguments in January, the CBI presented eyewitness accounts and told the court that there is sufficient evidence to frame charges against the Congress leader
“Tytler provoked the mob to kill Sikhs which resulted in Gurudwara Pul Bangash being set on fire by the mob and killing of three persons...” the CBI had said.
An eyewitness claimed to have seen a mob carrying petrol canisters, sticks, swords, and rods, with Tytler, then a Member of Parliament, in front of the gurdwara, while others claimed to have seen him emerge from a car, a white Ambassador, and exhort the gathered mob to carry out his “instructions”.
No evidence against me: Tytler
Tytler, however, has insisted there is not a “single (piece of) evidence” against him. “What have I done? If there is evidence against me I'm prepared to hang myself... It wasn't related to 1984 riots case for which they (the CBI) wanted my voice sample...” he had said in August last year.
“I will apologise because it (the riots) happened in our time. I would apologise a thousand times for what happened to the Sikhs... I would say it was shameful,” Tytler had said in May 2022.
Out on bail granted by court
Tytler got a clean chit from the CBI on three previous occasions, but after the last the court directed the agency to investigate further.
Tytler, 80, once a key Congress leader in Delhi, was also named in a report by the Nanavati Commission. His case was one of the three the panel recommended, in 2005, be reopened by the CBI.
Tytler is out on bail granted by a sessions court on a bond and surety of Rs 1 lakh each. The court had also imposed certain conditions on him, including guarantees that he will not tamper with the evidence or leave the country without permission.
Anti-Sikh riots had erupted in several parts of the country in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.
(With agency inputs)
