Sajjan Kumar convicted for 1984

Who: Sajjan Kumar, a senior Congress leader; survivors of the killings of five Sikhs in the Raj Nagar area of Delhi, who testified; HS Phoolka, who appeared for the victims; and the CBI, which appealed his acquittal.

What: On 17 December 2018 the Delhi High Court convicted Sajjan Kumar of criminal conspiracy and abetment of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment, in a 203-page ruling. It set aside his acquittal in April 2013, when a Karkardooma court had convicted five other men for being part of a mob that killed five Sikhs in Raj Nagar and let Kumar go. The High Court relied on three eyewitnesses whose family members were killed. Sikh Siyasat News reports that it also confirmed life imprisonment for the five men convicted in 2013: Mahender Yadav, Krishan Khokhar, Balwan Khokhar, Captain Bhagmal and Girdhari Lal. Kumar was told to surrender before 31 December, and an extension to 30 January was refused. On 22 December he moved the Supreme Court against the conviction. He surrendered on 31 December, aged 73.

The court called the killings of Sikhs in November 1984 crimes against humanity. As Sikh Siyasat News reads the judgment, it said they were engineered by political actors with the help of law enforcement, and that Indian law recognises neither crimes against humanity nor genocide as offences, a gap to be addressed urgently. It did not find genocide. Sikh Siyasat News called that finding correct but incomplete.

Where: Delhi High Court; the killings were in the Raj Nagar area of Delhi.

Why it mattered: It took 34 years. The first case against Kumar was registered in 1990, and the CBI told a court in 2012 that he had incited crowds to kill Sikhs, Al Jazeera reports. Estimates of the dead run from 2,433 in Delhi, in Scroll's report, to nearly 3,000 overall by the government's count, and about 4,000 in the view of rights activists.

Journalist Manoj Mitta, co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi, called the killings state-sponsored and said the six-year gap before the first case pointed to a cover-up. Amrik Singh, chair of the Sikh Federation UK, welcomed the sentence but called it too little, too late.

After 2018: Kumar was also convicted by a trial court on 12 February 2025 and given a second life sentence on 25 February 2025 for the Saraswati Vihar killing of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh. He died on 20 August 2026, aged 80, while serving both sentences in Tihar jail. On 25 August 2026 the Delhi High Court closed his appeal against the 2025 conviction, ruling that it "would abate" on his death (Deccan Chronicle; ThePrint).