After multiple flip-flops and closure reports, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a chargesheet against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 Sikh riots case.
Officials told CNN-News18 that fresh evidence has emerged against Tytler to establish the charge that he instigated the mob at Delhi’s Pul Bangash Gurdwara, leading to the murder of three Sikhs on November 1, 1984. “We have managed to find corroborative evidence to support the statements made by witnesses,” a CBI officer said. The chargesheet against Tytler has been filed in Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court under sections 147, 148,149,153(a), 188 of the IPC and 109 read with 302, 295, and 436.
CBI has filed three closure reports in the case earlier. In September 2015, the agency even argued that it cannot falsely implicate Tytler. “The CBI cannot falsely implicate an innocent person merely on the basis of charged sentiments and to satisfy the ego of some elements…,” the agency had said in its reply against a protest petition filed before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) SPS Laler.
The plea was filed by Lakhvinder Kaur whose husband Badal Singh was one of those murdered at Pul Bangash. CBI officials said Kaur’s testimony is crucial to its chargesheet. The statement of Surrinder Singh, the then Granthi of the gurdwara, has also been cited by CBI against Tytler. Singh, in his statement recorded earlier, said: “The mob put a tyre around Ragi Badal Singh, a Sikh police inspector Thakur Singh, and a Sikh servant and set them on fire. Tytler was there from 9am to 11am overseeing the carnage.”
Tytler, however, has argued that he was at Teen Murti Bhawan from 7am-3pm on November 1, overseeing arrangements after Indira Gandhi’s death.
“We have evidence to show that he was at Pul Bangash when three Sikhs were burnt to death,” a probe official told News18.
Jasbir Singh is the third witness against Tytler. Singh has claimed in his statement that on November 3, 1984, he had overheard Tytler rebuking his men for “nominal killing of Sikhs in his constituency”. California-based Singh had earlier been declared a proclaimed offender but CBI later recorded his statement.
Around 10 witnesses were examined by CBI in its reinvestigation, including politician Manjit Singh GK, who had released an alleged sting tape in which a person purported to be Tytler was claiming to have killed the Sikhs.
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