Balwan Khokhar

Balwan Khokhar is a former Congress councillor of the Palam Colony and Raj Nagar area of south-west Delhi. He is serving a sentence of life imprisonment for the killing of Sikhs in Raj Nagar on 1 November 1984. A trial court convicted him in 2013, the Delhi High Court upheld the conviction and sentence on 17 December 2018, and The Tribune reported in November 2025 that his appeal is pending in the Supreme Court.

What the Nanavati Commission found: Many witnesses from Raj Nagar and Palam Colony, among them Jagdish Kaur and Sudershan Singh, told the Nanavati Commission that the mobs there were led by Khokhar and other Congress leaders. Sudershan Singh said that Sajjan Kumar was giving Khokhar directions during the attacks, and several witnesses named Khokhar as the leader of the mob that attacked their houses. Sajjan Kumar told the Commission that Khokhar had been tried with him in earlier cases and acquitted in all of them. The Commission replied that, because the police had not investigated properly and the two men were influential in the area, those acquittals "cannot be given much importance". It found "credible material" that Kumar and Khokhar "were probably involved as alleged by the witnesses" (Part IV, South District).

The trial and the appeal: On 30 April 2013 a Karkardooma court held him guilty of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, along with Girdhari Lal and Captain Bhagmal; Mahender Yadav and Kishan Khokhar were convicted of rioting, and Sajjan Kumar was acquitted (The Tribune). Three of the five convicts were given life imprisonment and two three-year terms (The Week). On 17 December 2018 a bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and Vinod Goel of the Delhi High Court reversed Kumar's acquittal, affirmed the five convictions and sentences, and convicted the five of criminal conspiracy as well (SCC Online).

Since the conviction: On 3 February 2023 a Supreme Court bench led by Justice S.K. Kaul declined to take up his bail plea, telling him he could not seek bail after nine years while his appeal, filed in 2019, was pending; his counsel said he had a 50 per cent disability, and Dushyant Dave, for the victims' families, said no relief should be granted. In 2025 the jail authorities rejected his request for furlough, citing the risk to public order, and he challenged that in the Delhi High Court, where in November Justice Ravinder Dudeja gave the Delhi government more time to reply (The Tribune).

Key moments

• 1 November 1984: the attacks on Sikhs in Raj Nagar and Palam Colony begin.
• 8 August 2005: the Nanavati Commission's report, naming him and Sajjan Kumar, is tabled in Parliament.
• 30 April 2013: convicted of murder by the Karkardooma court.
• 17 December 2018: the Delhi High Court affirms his conviction and sentence.
• 3 February 2023: the Supreme Court declines to take up his bail plea.

Remembered for: Survivors named him as a leader of the mobs of Raj Nagar and Palam Colony, and the courts convicted him after earlier acquittals. The Nanavati Commission's reasons for discounting those acquittals and the courts' verdicts are recorded here together.