1984 anti-Sikh riots case: Court reserves judgement

A Delhi court today reserved its judgement in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in which Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and five others are accused.
District Jugde J R Aryan fixed the matter for April 16 for clarification, if any, from CBI or the six accused persons after they concluded the final arguments in the case.
"Judgement is reserved. To come up for clarification, if any, on April 16," the judge said.
Concluding the final arguments, CBI prosecutor D P Singh said that the prosecution has limited itself to what each of the witnesses had seen at the time of the incident.

The witnesses have given honest versions of what they all had seen during the riots, he said, alleging that in all the complaints wherever Kumar's name had cropped up, it was "immediately eliminated" from the police records.
During the arguments, Kumar's counsel I U Khan told the court that there were material contradictions in statements of the witnesses, including complainant Jagdish Kaur.

Khan said Kaur had not taken Kumar's name anywhere in any of her affidavits filed before various judicial commissions, constituted to probe the riots-related cases, till 2010.
"When she (Kaur) appeared in the court in 2010 to record her statement, she gave us a shock by naming Sajjan Kumar for the first time and said something which was not there in the records," he argued.

Kumar is facing trial along with five others--Balwan Khokkar, Kishan Khokkar, Mahender Yadav, Girdhari Lal and Captain Bhagmal - for allegedly inciting a mob against the Sikh community in Delhi Cantonment area.
The case relates to anti-Sikh riots that had broken out after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.