Cobrapost sting records Delhi Police officers on November 1984

Who: The news portal Cobrapost, and retired Delhi Police officers who were station house officers (SHOs) in 1984: Shoorveer Singh Tyagi (Kalyanpuri), Rohtas Singh (Delhi Cantonment), S N Bhaskar (Krishna Nagar), O P Yadav (Srinivaspuri), Jaipal Singh (Mehrauli) and Amrik Singh Bhullar (Patel Nagar). Cobrapost also approached the then police chief S C Tandon and Additional Commissioner Gautam Kaul. Tandon declined to comment and Kaul said he had no first-hand knowledge.

What: Cobrapost released the sting, titled "Chapter 84", on 22 April 2014, a day after a Sikh protest demanding action against those accused over the Tesra Ghallughara. It was reportedly shot over a year and shown as a film of about 90 minutes. What follows is what Cobrapost reported the officers as saying; none of the press reports verified it independently. The officers spoke of the force's failure. They said warnings of anti-Sikh feeling went unheeded, that police were told over the radio not to act against crowds shouting pro-Indira Gandhi slogans, and that senior officers barred them from opening fire. They said only about two per cent of control room messages were recorded, logbooks were altered to hide inaction, and victims were stopped from filing FIRs or had separate murder and arson cases bundled into one. They also said some police moved victims' bodies elsewhere to lower the count at their own stations. Tyagi said the government's intention appeared to be that the Sikhs should get some punishment. Three of the officers blamed Tandon, with Tyagi saying he was influenced by the government and mismanaged the early response. Cobrapost concluded that the police inaction was "by design".

Where: Delhi, in the police station areas of Kalyanpuri, Delhi Cantonment, Krishna Nagar, Srinivaspuri, Mehrauli and Patel Nagar.

Why it mattered: The officers who answered for the police on the ground spoke in their own voices. Cobrapost recalled that the Kusum Lata Mittal Committee had identified 72 officers for connivance or gross negligence and sought the dismissal of 30, but that nothing came of it. The sting came out during the 2014 general election campaign, and the parties reacted at once. Congress's Rashid Alvi said those responsible, politicians or police officers, should be punished. The BJP's Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi called the violence a Congress-sponsored pogrom. Sukhbir Singh Badal promised a commission of inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge and fast-track courts. Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said the issue was being politicised before the elections. Senior advocate H S Phoolka, then an AAP candidate in Ludhiana, said the police had closed 241 of the 587 cases it registered.