Sikh Riot Widows Castigate Policemen

Rediff.com. July 18, 2001

The Nanavati Commission, probing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, on Wednesday for the first time recorded statements of three riot-widows, who narrated their horrifying experience when their kith and kin were killed in front of their eyes in east Delhi.

The riots followed the killing of former prime minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards.

In their testimony, Pritpal Kaur, Amarjit Kaur and Bhajan Kaur told the Commission that the role of police officials was utterly biased against Sikhs while dealing with the hooligans in Shakarpur area.

Another witness Mahender Singh alleged four persons of his family were killed by a mob led by Congress leader S S Tyagi while he himself and his father were critically injured at their house in Gandhi Nagar locality.

While they were lying unconscious, police had taken them to a mortuary along with the dead without ascertaining whether they were alive.

Amarjit and Bhajan had each lost three of their family members while Pritpal had lost two of her family members in the riots.