SIT: Indifferent cops and insensitive judges failed '84 riot victims

Anti-Sikh riots: ‘Incidents in one area clubbed into one FIR, almost no probe’

- Dhananjay.Mahapatra

New Delhi: The Supreme Court-constituted Justice S N Dhingra-led SIT in its report has slammed “indifferent police and insensitive trial judges” for “complete failure of justice” in the 1984 Sikh riots cases involving hundreds of murders and blamed the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry for causing years of delay in registration of FIRs in heinous offences.

“In the name of investigation, almost nothing was done by police; acquittals were handed down by judges, not alive to the situation of 1984 riots, in a routine manner; and Justice Misra commission received hundreds of affidavits from kin of victims of riots, but failed to direct police to register FIRs, which were delayed by years resulting in acquittal” — are some of the findings of the SIT.

The summary of the re-port, submitted in April2019 but made public on Thursday, stated that “the basic reason for these crimes remaining unpunished and culprits getting scot free was lack of interest shown by the (Delhi) Police and the authorities in handling these cases as per the law or to proceed with the intention of punishing the culprits”. Some portions of the report were earlier published by the media but details of police inaction and judicial insensitivity have came to light for the first time now.