R.K. Ahooja

R.K. Ahooja (often spelt Ahuja) was the Home Secretary of the Delhi Administration who, in 1987, counted the dead of the November 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi and fixed the number the Indian government still uses, 2,733. The Nanavati Commission calls him "a Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs"; his own committee's report is signed by him as Home Secretary.

The Administrator of Delhi appointed him by an order of 23 February 1987 as a one-man committee, to determine "the final figures of death", the names and other particulars of everyone killed in Delhi between 31 October and 7 November 1984, and to recommend ex-gratia payments and other benefits for the next of kin. He was given three months. The task came from the Misra Commission, which had found that the true toll lay somewhere between the Delhi Administration's admitted 2,307 and the Citizens' Justice Committee's list of 3,949 names (3,874 once corrected), and had asked for an officer with full powers to settle it after a public notice inviting claims.

How he counted

• Public notices in English, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi ran in 17 newspapers, with a closing date of 10 April 1987; applications that kept arriving until the end of April were counted too.
• His committee received applications for 1,767 deaths. Removing 62 duplicates left 1,705, and only 110 of them were on neither the Relief Commissioner's list nor the police list. After hearings and police checks, 52 of those 110 were verified.
• The total was 2,401 deaths accepted from the Relief Commissioner's list, plus 280 from the Citizens' Justice Committee's list that the police verified on the spot, plus the 52 new cases: 2,733. His report called this "the authentic figure", while allowing that an odd case might still come to light.

He reasoned that if another 1,731 or so of the Citizens' Justice Committee's names were real dead, many more claims would have come in answer to his notice; only 110 new cases did, which he took to show that the earlier inquiries had been thorough.

What he recommended: the same compensation for 345 further cases found eligible; government jobs for the widows still unemployed, about 300; a pension of Rs 500 a month for widows over 55 if neither she nor a son had been given a job; stipends of Rs 50 a month for each child in school and Rs 100 in college; and that the Relief Commissioner's work continue, because some families might not yet have come forward "either through ignorance or infirmity".

What is said of the figure: Ensaaf notes that his report did not examine the number of Sikhs killed in Kanpur, Bokaro or other places outside Delhi.