look news india
Former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, who was serving life imprisonment in cases related to the famous anti-Sikh riots of 1984, has passed away. According to information received from Safdarjung Hospital sources, he breathed his last at the age of 80. However, the official cause of his death has not yet been clarified by the hospital administration. For the last few years, he was serving his life sentence in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
The court had sentenced life imprisonment
On December 17, 2018, the Delhi High Court had convicted Sajjan Kumar and sentenced him to life imprisonment in the case related to the murder of five Sikhs and burning of a Gurudwara during the riots. Since then he was continuously in jail. Apart from this, in February 2025, another Delhi court had also sentenced him to life imprisonment in another case of murder of two Sikh men during the 1984 riots. Talking about political career, Sajjan Kumar had been a Lok Sabha MP thrice and had represented the Outer Delhi Lok Sabha seat. He resigned from the Congress party after being convicted by the court in 2018.
How did the 1984 anti-Sikh riots break out?
If we turn the pages of history, the anti-Sikh riots in the country broke out on 31 October 1984, just after the assassination of the then Prime Minister and Congress leader Indira Gandhi. The country’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her own two Sikh bodyguards. These bodyguards wanted to avenge the military operation ‘Operation Blue Star’ conducted in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar in June 1984. After this incident, severe violence broke out in many parts of the country including the capital Delhi, due to which the cases related to which were punished after a long legal battle.