Ex-Congress MP Sajjan Kumar has been been given a lifer in the killings of two Sikhs during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. The sentencing marks a significant moment in the long and painful pursuit of justice for the victims of one of India’s darkest chapters. The ruling by the Rouse Avenue Court is another painful reminder of how a political leader used his influence to incite and lead a brutal mob, resulting in the deaths of two innocent Sikhs, Jaswant Singh and his son, Tarundeep Singh, in Delhi’s Saraswati Vihar area. This verdict, the second life sentence for Kumar, reinforces that the wheels of justice continue to turn, though far too slowly for many.

However, the reactions to the verdict underscore the deep sense of injustice that remains. Sikh leaders, like Gurlad Singh, have expressed dissatisfaction with the life sentence, demanding nothing less than the death penalty. The prosecution, too, argued that Kumar’s crimes were so heinous that they should be treated with the utmost severity, contending that this case was even more serious than the infamous Nirbhaya gang rape and murder, highlighting the larger scale of violence targeting an entire community. The prosecution’s stance is understandable given that the 1984 riots were not random acts of violence but a systematic campaign to annihilate Sikhs, both physically and socially. The argument for capital punishment stems from the belief that such brazen violence, incited by someone in power, deserves to be condemned as “rarest of rare” – the highest degree of severity in Indian legal parlance.

The idea that the violence was not only targeted at individuals but was a concerted effort to terrorize an entire community speaks to the deeper scars that these riots left on Sikh lives. The systematic looting, burning, and destruction of Sikh homes and businesses disrupted lives in unimaginable ways, leading to a wave of migration and long-lasting trauma.