Victims’ families express deep grief

A daughter who watched her father being set on fire, a wife widowed in her youth, and a man who lost his loved ones in the 1984 riots. They all stood outside a Delhi court on Thursday, carrying the weight of their grief that has lingered for four decades.

Justice has been long, exhausting, and cruelly unfulfilled, the families said following the acquittal of former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in a case related to alleged incitement of violence in the Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Despite this acquittal, Kumar remains in prison, having been sentenced to life imprisonment in other riot-related murder cases.  Standing outside the courtroom, Nirmal Kaur recounted a childhood scorched by flames.

My father was burnt alive before my eyes, and I have spent 42 years moving from one court to another, clinging to the belief that justice would one day arrive,” she told PTI, crying for justice.

She added that her family was destroyed that day, saying, “I myself was destroyed, and every good thing in my life was taken away.” Even now, she lamented that justice remained out of reach after decades of hope.

Beside her stood another woman, her voice shaking with rage and despair. She declared that the man she held responsible must be punished and hanged, warning that if this did not happen, they would remain outside the court, even if it meant dying there — they had nothing left to lose.

Wazir Singh, another family member of a riot victim, said that Kumar had faced around 18 murder cases yet had been let off.  “He was responsible for the killing of thousands of Sikhs, and families like mine have spent their entire lives moving in and out of courtrooms,” Singh said.

He asserted that if justice remained denied, they were ready to appeal to the high court and even the Supreme Court, expressing that they were no longer afraid to fight. For Bagi Kaur, the memories of the riots are still unbearable and vivid.

“Ten members of my family were killed. I vividly remember that during the riots, the roads were littered with corpses. One had to jump over dead bodies to cross the road,” she recounted. She described witnessing her family’s dreams being destroyed and mentioned that not a single day had passed in all these years when she missed a court hearing, regardless of the circumstances.