Shoorveer Singh Tyagi

Shoorveer Singh Tyagi was the Station House Officer (SHO) of Kalyanpuri police station in East Delhi in November 1984. Trilokpuri, where Sikhs were killed from 1 to 3 November in one of the worst massacres of the Tesra Ghallughara (a name Sikhs also give to the June 1984 attack on Sri Darbar Sahib), lay in his station's area. His name is spelled Shoorvir in some accounts.

What the record shows

• Survivors' accounts. Affidavits to the Misra Commission, collected by the 1984 Sikh Archive, name SHO Tyagi, together with Congress leaders Dr Ashok and Rampal Saroj and the minister H.K.L. Bhagat, as directing the mobs. Survivors say that on 1 November police told Sikhs who had gathered to defend their neighbourhood to go home, after which the attacks began and continued until the evening of 3 November.
• Kusum Lata Mittal Committee. The committee, whose report is dated 1990, called him a living shame. With DCP Sewa Dass it held him responsible for the killings at Trilokpuri, citing his disarming of gathered Sikhs and his standing by while mobs attacked. An account of the report published by All About Sikhs says he made no effort to stop the attackers and that the first arrests came only on 2 November.
• The court. The same account says he was discharged because the police did not seek the sanction needed to prosecute, and the minor charges were time-barred.
• Promotion. The 1984 Sikh Archive says no Kalyanpuri officer was brought to justice and that Tyagi was promoted to Assistant Commissioner of Police.
• April 2014. Cobrapost released its "Chapter 84" sting, recording retired Delhi Police officers. News reports say Tyagi was one of them. He is quoted as saying that the then police chief, S.C. Tandon, knowingly or unknowingly acted under the government's influence and mismanaged matters at the start. These are Cobrapost's recordings as reported by news outlets, not findings of a court.

His case sets three things side by side: survivors' accounts that name him, an official committee's condemnation, and a court discharge on procedural grounds.