1984 Anti-Sikh Riots - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Delhi High Court, while pronouncing its verdict on a riots-related case in 2009, stated:

There are allegations that the government destroyed evidence and shielded the guilty. Asian Age, an Indian daily newspaper, ran a front-page story calling the government actions "the mother of all cover-ups."

From 31 October 1984 to 10 November 1984, human rights groups People's Union for Democratic Rights and People's Union for Civil Liberties conducted an inquiry into the pogroms by interviewing victims of the pogroms, police officers, neighbours of the victims, army personnel and political leaders. In their joint report, entitled Who Are The Guilty?, they concluded:

The attacks on members of the Sikh Community in Delhi and its suburbs during the period, far from being a spontaneous expression of "madness" and of popular "grief and anger" at Mrs. Gandhi's assassination as made out to be by the authorities, were the outcome of a well organised plan marked by acts of both deliberate commissions and omissions by important politicians of the Congress (I) at the top and by authorities in the administration.

Eyewitness accounts obtained by Time magazine state the Delhi Police looked on as "rioters murdered and raped, having gotten access to voter records that allowed them to mark Sikh homes with large Xs, and large mobs being bused in to large Sikh settlements". Time reported the pogroms only led to minor arrests and that no major politician or police officer had been convicted and quotes Ensaaf, a human rights organisation, as saying the government worked to destroy evidence of involvement by refusing to record First Information Reports.

A Human Rights Watch report published in 1991 on violence between Sikh separatists and the Government of India traces part of the problem back to the government response to the violence:

Despite numerous credible eye-witness accounts that identified many of those involved in the violence, including police and politicians, in the months following the killings, the government sought no prosecutions or indictments of any persons, including officials, accused in any case of murder, rape or arson.

There are allegations that the violence was led and often perpetrated by Indian National Congress activists and sympathizers during the pogrom. The government, then led by the Congress, was widely criticised for doing very little at the time, possibly acting as a conspirator. Voting lists were used to identify Sikh families.

On 31 July 1985, Harjinder Singh Jinda, Sukhdev Singh Sukha and Ranjit Singh Gill of Khalistan Commando Force assassinated Lalit Maken (Member – Parliament of India and a leader of Congress (I)) to take revenge of 1984 Anti Sikh Riots. In a 31-page booklet titled Who Are The Guilty, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) listed 227 people who led the mobs, Lalit Maken's name was third on the list.

Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha also assassinated Congress (I) leader Arjan Dass because of his involvement in 1984 Anti-Sikh pogrom. Arjan Dass's name appeared in various affidavits submitted by Sikh victims to the Nanavati Commission which was headed by Justice G.T. Nanavati, retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India.