40 years after anti-Sikh riots, Tytler to finally face trial

Forty years after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a Delhi court on Friday framed charges for murder and other offences against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in a case related to the killing of three people in north Delhi's Pul Bangash area.

Special judge Rakesh Siyal directed that Tytler face trial after he pleaded not guilty to the offences.

Besides murder, the court ordered framing of charges for several other offences, including unlawful assembly, rioting, promoting enmity between different groups, house trespass and theft.

The judge had on August 30 said there was sufficient ground to proceed against the accused.

The CBI had on May 20, 2023 filed a charge sheet against Tytler in the case.

Tytler "incited, instigated and provoked the mob assembled at Pul Bangash Gurudwara Azad Market" on November 1, 1984 that resulted in burning down of the gurudwara and killing of three Sikhs -- Thakur Singh, Badal Singh and Gurcharan Singh -- the CBI alleged in its charge sheet.

The agency had invoked charges under IPC sections 147 (rioting), 148, 149 (unlawful assembly), 153A (provocation), 109 (abetment) read with 302 (murder) and 295 (defiling of religious places) among others.

Citing a witness, the Central Bureau of Investigation had said in its charge sheet that Tytler came out of a white Ambassador car in front of Gurdwara Pul Bangash on November 1, 1984 and instigated a mob by shouting "kill the Sikhs, they have killed our mother".

Three Sikhs were then killed by the mob.

Anti-Sikh riots had erupted in several parts of the country in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.

A sessions court had in August last year granted anticipatory bail to Tytler in the case.