Convict Sajjan Kumar seeks lord's blessings, evades question on verdict

A day after the Delhi High Court sentenced him to life imprisonment in a 1984 Anti-Sikh riots case, Congress leader Sajjan Kumar chose to evade questions on his conviction.

Questions were posed to Kumar when he visited Delhi's famous Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place on Tuesday morning. He, however, walked past media persons and ignored repeated questions seeking his comments on the High Court judgement.

The Congress leader was accompanied by armed guards during his visit to the temple.

During Monday's ruling, the bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel asked the 73-year-old former Member of Parliament (MP) to surrender before December 31. The Court also directed him to not leave Delhi and levied a fine of Rs 5 lakh on him.

The case pertains to the murder of five Sikhs in the Delhi Cantonment area during the large-scale violence that occurred following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. During four days of carnage, about 2,700 Sikhs were killed in the national capital alone.

Earlier in 2013, the Karkardooma trial court had acquitted Kumar in the case and convicted five others. The appeal against the said order was filed by those convicted in the case, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the family of victims.