Who organised the November 1984 killings, and why were so few convicted?

The claim: Defenders of the Congress leadership say the high command did not plan the killings. As The Caravan reports, the Nanavati Commission found no evidence that Rajiv Gandhi or any other top Congress leader organised the attacks and put them down to local leaders and workers acting “for their personal political reasons”. Jagdish Tytler denies any part and said in 2005 that the affidavit behind the commission’s remarks had been withdrawn (The Tribune). Courts have also acquitted: Sajjan Kumar was acquitted in the Sultanpuri case in September 2023, the judge giving him “benefit of doubt”, and in the Janakpuri and Vikaspuri cases in January 2026 (The Tribune). On this view courts have asked for proof and not always been given it.

The sourced facts:

• Who the inquiries named. The Nanavati Commission found “credible evidence” that Tytler “very probably” had a hand in organising attacks, named Sajjan Kumar, H. K. L. Bhagat and Dharam Dass Shastri, found that the police “turned a blind eye”, and indicted the then Delhi Police chief for failing to act (The Tribune). The Misra Commission blamed local Congress leaders, not senior ones, and called the evidence against Bhagat “scanty” (The Caravan).
• Inquiries that stalled. Human Rights Watch counted ten commissions and committees by 2014. In The Caravan’s account, the Jain-Banerjee committee ordered a murder case against Sajjan Kumar in 1987 but a High Court stay in 1989 effectively disbanded it, and the Mittal committee indicted 72 police officers yet only departmental inquiries followed.
• The case file. Delhi Police filed 587 FIRs and closed more than 230 without investigation; by 2014 only 30 people had been convicted, mostly low-ranking Congress supporters (Human Rights Watch). A Home Ministry SIT examined 187 cases and closed 186 without investigation in December 2017 (ThePrint). The Supreme Court’s SIT under Justice S. N. Dhingra reported in January 2020 that “the whole efforts of the police and the administration seem to have been to hush up the criminal cases”: complaints were clubbed, one FIR covering 498 incidents had a single investigating officer, forensic evidence was not preserved, and acquittals came “in a routine manner”. The Centre told the Court it accepted the report (The Tribune).
• Convictions that did come. In November 2018 the Patiala House court sentenced Yashpal Singh to death and Naresh Sherawat to life for killing two Sikh men at Mahipalpur, a case Delhi Police had closed in 1994 and an SIT reopened (Scroll). On 17 December 2018 the Delhi High Court gave Sajjan Kumar life for the Raj Nagar killings, reversing his 2013 acquittal, after an appeal that came before a bench 119 times and 14 judges (ThePrint). A trial court sentenced him to life again in February 2025, and he died on 20 August 2026 (The Week). In September 2024 a Delhi court framed murder charges against Tytler in the Pul Bangash case; he pleaded not guilty (The Tribune).

The Panthic answer: Sikh bodies hold that the killings were organised from above and then shielded from above. Ensaaf’s Twenty Years of Impunity, as summarised in a 2005 Harvard-hosted blog post, says Congress leaders met the night before the attacks and handed out weapons, money, and voter and ration lists, and that police took part, disarmed Sikhs and doctored records. Giani Kuldeep Singh Gargaj, officiating Jathedar, said on 1 November 2025 that most of those responsible were never arrested and several senior Congress leaders remain free (The Tribune). SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami called for exemplary punishment for Sajjan Kumar and severe punishment for other Congress leaders, and the Delhi committee’s leaders said it recorded victims’ and witnesses’ statements under heavy pressure (The Tribune). The lawyer H. S. Phoolka argues that the lack of witness protection is the main reason witnesses were slow to come forward (ThePrint). Bhai Ajmer Singh argued at Panjab University, Chandigarh, on 15 November 2018 that a state that commits or backs genocide fears no law and holds far more power than its victims, so the crime ends in impunity (Sikh Siyasat News).