Lakhwinder Kaur, wife of Badal Singh, one of the three victims of arson at the Pul Bangash Gurdwara during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, testified on Thursday that an eyewitness told her Congress leader Jagdish Tytler had incited a mob at the scene of the violence.
On August 30, Judge Rakesh Syal of Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court ordered the framing of charges against Tytler, 80, under sections 302 (murder), 109 (abetment), 147 (rioting), 153A (promoting enmity between groups), and 143 (unlawful assembly) of the Indian Penal Code in the case.
After Tytler pleaded not guilty, the trial commenced with Lakhwinder Kaur being the first witness to depose before the court of Special Judge Vishal Gogne.
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“My husband Badal Singh expired on November 1, 1984, at Gurdwara Pul Bangash during the course of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. He had dropped me to his village in Muzaffarnagar about two days prior to the date of the incident,” she said, beginning her deposition.
Must Read | 1984 anti-Sikh riots: How one woman’s search for another led to murder charge against Jagdish Tytler
According to Kaur, she married Singh in 1981, three years before the riots. Her husband was a ragi in the Pul Bangash Gurdwara.
“Upon learning of the demise of my husband five days after his death, I came to Delhi with my father-in-law. At the time, my daughter was about 10 months old. My youngest daughter was born after the demise of my husband,” Kaur said.
Kaur recounted that she met Surender Singh Granthi, who had worked as a granthi at the gurdwara in 2008. “He described the incident to me wherein my husband was killed during the riots. He told me that he saw the incident from the roof of the gurdwara. He told me that he saw my husband Badal Singh exiting from the gurdwara and saw him being attacked by a mob who took out the kirpan of my husband and stabbed him to death using the same.
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“Granthi also told me that Tytler had come to the place of the incident in a vehicle and that he had gathered everyone. Surender told me that the mob engaged in violence on the incitement of Tytler and my husband’s body was put in a cart after he was killed and burnt by placing burning tyres on top of him,” she told the court.
“After I found out, I approached Vrinda Grover, who moved an application at KKD courts for investigation about the incident. My statement was recorded by the CBI officials.”
Tytler’s counsel opposed the deposition, arguing that the granthi’s account was hearsay and therefore inadmissible as evidence. But the court rejected the claim and adjourned the matter until October 15.
After initially filing a closure report clearing Tytler, the Central Bureau of Investigation was directed to reopen the investigation against him in 2007 by a Delhi court. It was Kaur’s petition against the closure report that propelled the case forward.
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On two other occasions, in 2009 and 2014, the CBI closed the case against Tytler, but the court refused to accept its report. Last April, the agency stated it had fresh evidence against Tytler—a corroboration of his voice sample with a particular speech he made 39 years ago, which allegedly linked him to the incident.
In its chargesheet filed last May, the CBI accused Tytler of “inciting, instigating and provoking the mob” assembled near the Pul Bangash Gurdwara at Azad Market, Bara Hindu Rao, on November 1, 1984. A day earlier, then prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
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Relying on the testimony of a witness, the CBI also claimed that Tytler had instigated the mob by shouting, “Kill the Sikhs. They have killed our mother”—referring to Indira Gandhi.