Sajjan Kumar, a former Congress MP convicted in a 1984 Sikh riots case, died aged 80 at a Delhi hospital on Thursday. Kumar, who was serving life imprisonment in Tihar jail, was rushed to state-run Safdarjung Hospital, where the doctors declared him brought dead.
Who was Sajjan Kumar?
Sajjan Kumar was born on September 23, 1945, to Raghunath Singh and Mee Kaur. A bakery owner before stepping into politics, he was sworn in as Delhi Councillor in 1977.
He was first elected to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and later became general secretary of the Congress' Delhi unit. He was a loyalist of Sanjay Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi.
In 1980, he was elected to the 7th Lok Sabha from the Outer Delhi constituency on a Congress ticket. He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1991. In 2004, he won the Outer Delhi seat again with a record over 8.5 lakh votes.
Kumar was convicted of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that broke out after Indira Gandhi's assassination. The riots led to the killing of thousands of Sikhs, mainly in Delhi.
Photo Credit: PTI
Witnesses claimed he gave inflammatory speeches and provided rioters with Rs 100 and liquor.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which later probed the case, found that Kumar had conspired with the police to erase his name from eyewitness testimonies.
In 2010, he was charged with murder, rioting, criminal conspiracy, and inciting violence. In 2013, a district court acquitted him, but the CBI challenged the decision in the Delhi High Court.
In December 2018, the Delhi High Court sentenced Kumar to life imprisonment for his role in the 1984 riots. His lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court, but it was rejected.
On April 27, 2022, he was granted bail in one riot-related case but remained in jail due to his conviction in another case.
On February 12, 2025, a Delhi court convicted him in a second case for instigating and participating in the murder of Jaswant Singh and his son, Tarundeep Singh, on November 1, 1984. Fourteen eyewitnesses testified against him. On February 25, 2025, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for this case.
He was lodged in Tihar Jail.
