Sajjan Kumar

Sajjan Kumar was a Congress politician and a three-time Lok Sabha member from Outer Delhi who was convicted of abetment of murder and murder in the November 1984 pogrom against Sikhs in Delhi, the Tesra Ghallughara (a name Sikhs also give to the June 1984 attack on Sri Darbar Sahib). He died on 20 August 2026, aged 80, while serving life sentences.

Who he was. Born on 23 September 1945, he reportedly ran a tea shop and was associated with a bakery business before entering politics through a Delhi Municipal Corporation election. He won the Outer Delhi seat in 1980, defeating Brahm Prakash, Delhi's first chief minister, and again in 1991. He resigned from the Congress after his 2018 conviction.

1984. After Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards on 31 October 1984, mobs killed Sikhs across Delhi. Counts of the Delhi dead differ: Scroll cited 2,433 in 2018, and PTI reported more than 2,700 in 2026. Kumar was accused of instigating the killings in his constituency. The first case against him was registered in 1990, and in 2012 the CBI told a court that he had incited crowds to kill Sikhs.

The cases

• 17 December 2018, Raj Nagar and Palam Colony. The Delhi High Court overturned a 2013 trial court acquittal and convicted him of criminal conspiracy and abetment of murder over the killing of five Sikhs and the burning of a gurdwara, sentencing him to life imprisonment. The 203-page judgment relied on three eyewitnesses whose relatives were killed, and called the November 1984 killings "crimes against humanity." He challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court and surrendered in December 2018.
• September 2023, Sultanpuri. A Rouse Avenue court acquitted him, giving him the "benefit of doubt," in the case of the killing of Surjit Singh. Sukhbir Singh Badal called the acquittal "painful and shocking in the extreme."
• 12 and 25 February 2025, Saraswati Vihar. Special Judge Kaveri Baweja convicted him of murder and sentenced him to life for the killing of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh, burned alive on 1 November 1984. The court found that he was part of the mob that set their house on fire, killed them and looted their belongings. It declined the death penalty, citing mitigating factors that included his ailments and satisfactory conduct in jail.
• 22 January 2026, Janakpuri and Vikaspuri. A court acquitted him for lack of credible evidence that he was at the scene or instigated the mob. The judge noted that most prosecution witnesses gave hearsay statements and that many had not named him for thirty years.

Reactions in 2018. Akali Dal leaders called the verdict historic and demanded action against Jagdish Tytler and Kamal Nath as well. The Punjab Congress's Sunil Jakhar said no one was above the law and that Kamal Nath's name had never been on the list of those involved.

His death. He died on 20 August 2026, while serving two life sentences in Tihar jail; reports say he was taken to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, where he was declared dead, and that the hospital had not stated a cause. A Delhi High Court bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Vikas Mahajan later held that his appeal against the Saraswati Vihar conviction would abate.

What he is remembered for. His 2018 conviction came thirty-four years after the killings. Whether the 1984 killings amount to genocide is a separate and contested question; the Delhi High Court used the words "crimes against humanity."