Mukhtiar Singh

Mukhtiar Singh lived in a staff quarter of Gurdwara Rakab Ganj, beside Parliament in New Delhi, in November 1984. He was one of the witnesses who appeared in person before the Nanavati Commission and gave evidence about the attack on the gurdwara on 1 November 1984, and the Commission lists him as Witness No. 2.

His account, as the Commission summarises it

• About 11 a.m. a big mob attacked the gurdwara, pelting stones for about half an hour while some policemen present took no action.
• Between 11.30 a.m. and noon the sewadars pushed a mob that had entered the compound back out. Soon afterwards an aged Sikh who went to the mob with folded hands, hoping to calm it, was dragged out and beaten, and someone threw a white powder on him so that his body began to burn. His son ran to save him and was set on fire in the same way. Mukhtiar Singh and others brought the two inside; the police refused to take them to hospital. The older man died after some time and the younger about three to four hours later.
• When the mob grew bigger, he said, Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Vasant Sathe were seen in it, and on the leaders' instructions the police fired several rounds at the gurdwara. Sub Inspector Hoshiar Singh later instigated the mob to enter and handed his revolver to a man in it, who fired towards the gurdwara.
• About 3 p.m. the Police Commissioner arrived with a heavy force. Mukhtiar Singh was kept at the North Avenue police post that night and the next day.

What the Commission made of it. It accepted that the policemen posted at the gurdwara "had remained completely passive" and failed in their duty, and issued notices to Sub Inspector Hoshiar Singh and Additional Commissioner Gautam Kaul. On Vasant Sathe it said Mukhtiar Singh named him for the first time after about 16 years, and that he "had a wrong impression" about Sathe's presence. On Kamal Nath it said Mukhtiar Singh and another resident, Ajit Singh, stood quite far from him in the crowd and could not have heard what he said, so that what they said was an inference from his gestures, and that "in absence of better evidence" it could not say he instigated the mob. The journalist Sanjay Suri described in his affidavit a crowd of about 4,000 led by Kamal Nath, and the Commission also noted his evidence that Kamal Nath tried to persuade the mob to disperse. Kamal Nath says he went to calm the crowd, and denies that he led or controlled it.

What he is remembered for: his account of the burning of two Sikhs and of police inaction at a major Delhi shrine, which the Commission accepted in part, and for being among the witnesses who placed Kamal Nath at the gurdwara.