Police didn't check 1984 rioters at govt's behest: Sting

A sting operation carried out by a news portal today claimed that the government had failed to take action to stop the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and senior police officers "colluded" with the then government to teach Sikhs a "lesson".

An investigation conducted by Cobrapost - Chapter 84 - claimed to have confessions of officers of Delhi Police most of whom have admitted in the sting to their "failure" as a force to take action against the culprits.

Cobrapost recorded the conversations of Shoorveer Singh Tyagi, then Station House Officer (SHO) Kalyanpuri, Rohtas Singh, SHO Delhi Cantonment, S N Bhaskar SHO Krishna Nagar, O P Yadav, SHO Srinivaspuri, and Jaipal Singh SHO Mehrauli.

The news portal claimed that S.C. Tandon - the then chief of police - conveniently parried all questions while Gautam Kaul, then Additional Commissioner of Police straightaway rejected the idea that he had any first-hand knowledge of rioting.

The news portal claimed that confessions of these officials revealed that while warnings about the simmering communal sentiments against Sikhs went unheard by senior officers, only two per cent of the messages of news of arson and rioting which bombarded the police control rooms, were recorded.

It also claimed that police logbooks were "conveniently" changed to eliminate evidence of inaction on the part of senior officers while some other officers did not act for fear of punishment being transferred.

According to the confessions of these officers, Cobrapost claimed, some police officers dumped bodies of victims somewhere else to minimise riot-related crimes and messages were broadcast directing police to not take action against rioters who were shouting slogans of "Indira Gandhi zindabad".

"The government of the day did not allow the police to act while creating an impression that the police were not performing their duty," the news portal alleged.

"While most of them candidly admitting to their failure as a force, some of them confessed that the top brass of the police force colluded with the government of the day to teach Sikhs a lesson," the newsportal said in its statement.

The sting was carried out over one year with vast majority of the shoots in the last two months. "The idea behind it was to get a snapshot of the 1984 traumatic event which followed after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi," it said.