Kalyanpuri

Kalyanpuri is a resettlement colony in East Delhi, inhabited mainly by poorer families, and the name of the police station whose area included Trilokpuri. Its area was one of the worst affected in Delhi in the Tesra Ghallughara, the November 1984 pogrom against Sikhs. The Nanavati Commission, which reported in 2005, gave the Kalyanpuri police station area a section of its own. The Mittal committee also reported on the station separately.

Key moments

• 1 to 3 November 1984: arson, looting and killing went on almost continuously. By police record 154 Sikhs were killed in the area. The Ahuja Committee estimated about 610 deaths in the area. The Nanavati Commission concludes from the affidavits that 300 to 400 Sikhs were killed. The Mittal report called the police figure too low, saying many bodies were disposed of, and that 600 deaths would be nearer the mark (Nanavati, pp. 85 to 86; Mittal, para. 3.163).
• In Blocks 32 and 36 of Trilokpuri, in the area of Kalyanpuri police station, the Nanavati Commission says almost all Sikh males were killed. Affidavits say police told Sikhs gathered near the burning gurdwara to go home, took away their kirpans and sticks, and left, after which the mob began killing (pp. 86 to 87). Witnesses before the Nanavati Commission named the station house officer, Shoorveer Singh Tyagi, as present with the mob.
• 2 November 1984: the journalist B. Joseph Maliakan told the Commission he saw three charred bodies of Sikhs at the police station, and a badly burnt man outside who said they had been set alight with kerosene; the duty officer denied knowing anything. The Commission records that the journalist Sanjay Suri supported his account of the situation in Kalyanpuri (pp. 89 to 90).
• Affidavits: the Mittal committee records that thirty affidavits to it from this station, one of them by Tyagi, praised him and the police, and that deponents told the Misra Commission such affidavits had been obtained through threats and misrepresentation (paras. 3.139 to 3.141).
• 1990: the Mittal report said Tyagi and Sewa Dass were mainly responsible for the mass killings, Tyagi in Kalyanpuri and Trilokpuri and Dass across the East District, and recommended dispensing with their services (paras. 3.231 to 3.232).
• 2005: Many witnesses told the Commission that Deputy Commissioner of Police Sewa Dass, Tyagi and a sub-inspector had encouraged the mobs. Sewa Dass told the Commission that a departmental inquiry had cleared him, and Tyagi that he had been falsely implicated and discharged in both criminal cases against him; the Commission recommended no action against either (p. 167). Witnesses from Trilokpuri also named the Congress MP H.K.L. Bhagat, and the Commission found credible material that local Congress leaders were very probably involved, but, as they had been acquitted, recommended no further action.

What it means today. Kalyanpuri, with Trilokpuri, is where the largest number of Sikhs in Delhi were killed in November 1984, and the record gives more than one count of the dead.