Sultanpuri Massacre

Who: Sikh residents of Sultanpuri, Delhi. The Congress MP most often named by survivors was Sajjan Kumar, according to a 1984 PUDR and PUCL fact-finding team. Survivor affidavits also name the local police station house officer, Bhatti. Kumar denied leading any mob, as reported at his 2002 trial.

What: In affidavits to the Misra Commission, witnesses describe a meeting in B-2 park on the morning of 1 November 1984 at which Kumar, in a white kurta-pyjama, blamed Sikhs for Indira Gandhi's death and told the crowd to kill them. Moti Singh says Kumar offered money for killing Sikhs, and more for named men. Over the next three days families were burnt alive, the gurdwara at F2 was set alight and women were assaulted. Bibi Bhagwani lost her sons Hoshiar Singh, 21, and Mohan Singh, 18, and her house was burnt. A Tribune report on the 2002 trial put the Sikhs killed in Sultanpuri at about 50.

Where: Sultanpuri, including B-2 park and the A-4 and C blocks, Delhi.

Why it mattered: The Sultanpuri cases ran through the courts for decades. Two FIRs were tried together in 2002: one from 1984 and one filed by the CBI in 1990 after a commission's recommendation. In July 2010 a trial court framed murder charges against five accused for six killings. The Delhi High Court refused to quash them on 17 July 2013, and on 3 December 2013 a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice A.K. Patnaik dismissed Kumar's plea. On 20 September 2023 a Delhi court acquitted him, giving him the benefit of the doubt, in the killing of Surjit Singh in Sultanpuri, and acquitted Brahmanand Gupta and Ved Prakash Pial too. Bibi Bhagwani died on 27 July 2013 without seeing a trial end.

The life sentence Kumar received from the Delhi High Court on 17 December 2018 was not for Sultanpuri. It was for the killing of five members of one family and the burning of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar, in the Delhi Cantonment area. In February 2025 he was convicted of the Saraswati Vihar murders of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh and received a second life term. He died at Safdarjung Hospital on 20 August 2026.