What was the role of the police during the massacres of Sikhs in November 1984?

On 21 April 2014, Indian media company Cobrapost aired an undercover investigative report, ‘Chapter 84’, which featured the unwitting confessions of eight former Delhi police officers snared in a sting operation. Several of them had been responsible for a number of the capital’s police stations during the massacres of November 1984.1 They described how the police force apparently colluded willingly with the Congress government of the day to ‘teach the Sikhs a lesson’.2 Twenty-nine years after the carnage, members of the state apparatus had finally provided damning testimony of their own guilt.

The policemen – among them Station House Officers Shoorveer Singh Tyagi of the police station in Kalyanpuri, Rhotas Singh of Delhi Cantonment and S. N. Bhaskar of Krishna Nagar emphasised how they had acted on orders from above. The police were commanded not to file First Information Reports (FIRs, the documents used to register crimes). As police control rooms were flooded with reports of violence and arson, only two per cent of them were actually logged. Logbooks were said to be subsequently amended to obscure evidence of inaction by senior officers, who forbade their subordinates from upholding the law.3

Prevented from taking action against perpetrators or to protect victims, they were instead to assist in the covering up of crimes, which included the removal of mutilated Sikh corpses from where they were killed and dumping them elsewhere.4

Delhi police structure in 1984.

It is beyond doubt that this atrocious dereliction of duty was a key factor in the mass crime against Sikhs. Thousands of lives may well have been saved if the Delhi police force had upheld their motto – Shanti, Seva, Nyaya or ‘Peace, Service, Justice’. In reality, it was inverted in sickening fashion: instead of ensuring peace, they facilitated violence; instead of service, they abdicated from protecting the city’s citizenry; and instead of justice, they serviced the perpetrators of mass murder, particularly through the wilful destruction of evidence.

Policing had effectively been curtailed across the capital, with very few exceptions. Nonetheless, crowd movements were continually being reported and recorded over the police’s wireless network, offering them every opportunity to deploy their resources to trouble spots.5 But as the violence began to erupt in East Delhi, the state’s initial response was to muster just three policemen.6

Of the high-ranking officers who were duty-bound to take control of the unfolding lawlessness that was rapidly spreading across the capital, the majority felt their presence was better suited at Teen Murti House where Mrs Gandhi’s body lay.7

Gradually, as more of Delhi’s policemen began arriving at flashpoints, it became clear to observers that they were acting in a contrary manner.8 Methodically and systematically, they engaged in a variety of complicit roles, fluidly shifting from one to another as required by the ever-changing context.

Police undertook reconnaissance to pinpoint Sikhs in hiding, coaxing them out on the pretext of offering protection.9 One widow from the doomed Trilokpuri colony, Vidya Kaur, witnessed this type of collusion. She described how police had reassured some Sikhs in hiding that they would help them. Once they had revealed their location, this information was duly passed on to the would-be killers.10 As the police watched on, some of the women pleaded with the gang members, calling them brothers and begging for their lives to be spared. ‘We are not your brothers,’ taunted the attackers. ‘We are your husbands. We will kidnap you tonight.’ And that is exactly what they did.11

Delhi’s finest also spent the first day after the assassination disarming Sikhs of any weapons that they could use to defend themselves – even those legally owned. On the morning of 1 November, mobs alleged to have been led by local Congress leader Dr Ashok Gupta, descended on Block 11 of Kalyanpuri in East Delhi. But they were forced to retreat when the Sikhs there opened fire. Within minutes the police arrived and ordered the Sikhs to surrender their weapons under promise of protection. Those who refused were threatened at gunpoint. Twenty-five Sikhs were arrested – perversely, these were the only arrests to figure in police records on that first day – and sent to Tihar Prison. Having seized their licensed weapons, the police left the remaining, unarmed, Sikhs of Block 11 at the mercy of the death squads who were waiting in the wings.12

Elsewhere, policemen implicitly condoned acts of violence through inaction. The Delhi Fire Services (DFS) later claimed that the police refused to escort their teams into the most severely affected areas, which meant that fires continued to rage across the capital until 5 November. Of the 174 gurdwaras that were subject to arson attack, they were only able to extinguish fires at four, leaving the remaining 170 burning.13

While mobs were burning down every Sikh house in Block C-4 in Sultanpuri in northwest Delhi and immolating the inhabitants, the police simply waited in nearby lanes.14 On a flyover between the villages of Bhogal and Ashram in South Delhi, twenty policemen watched as six Sikhs were beaten to death. A resident of East Vinod Nagar who was harbouring her Sikh neighbours was shocked to see how, after a group of would-be assassins were about to retreat when some policemen arrived, they were reprimanded by these guardians of the law and encouraged to continue on their rampage. Their colleagues elsewhere cheered from their police jeep when a Sikh taxi driver was burnt to death in his vehicle.15

In the aftermath of one of the massacres in East Delhi, a journalist asked Nikhil Kumar, the additional commissioner of police (the fourth highest rank in the Indian police service equivalent to the UK’s assistant chief constable) about the gruesome practice of ‘necklacing’, which had become the primary method for murdering Sikh men. His reported responsed:

Hindus are just burning garbage, how could police stop the madding crowd?

Nikhil Kumar, additional commissioner of police, East Delhi16

Kumar would later become the governor of Nagaland.

Little surprise, then, that murderers were heard to brag that ‘the police are with us’. In this vain, some policemen went even further, taking an active role in the killings.

In one incident in Block C-3 of the Sultanpuri colony, a policeman was reported to have shot a local Sikh leader, his accomplices being two other constables.17

After the first wave of killings, police attached themselves to roaming death squads in the hunt to chase down as many surviving Sikhs as possible. Several people testified that the police were instrumental in repeatedly giving killers free passage into colonies to ensure that those on murder lists had been accounted for, even though a curfew had been imposed – which effectively only applied to the Sikhs.18

Some police responded to survivors’ pleas for help with the sinister retort: ‘

Don’t worry; we are coming to burn you too.

Jarnail Singh, I Accuse… The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984, 201119

One shocking revelation was the discovery of the deployment of police personnel from a police-training centre in Haryana ‘to create chaos, lawlessness and destruction’. A survivor who later testified at an inquiry described how he had managed to get hold of one of those indulging in the violence and recovered an identity card proving he was from the Madhuban Police Training Centre.20 Scores of Sikhs were killed in his neighbourhood, though no investigation has ever made of the alleged involvement of the training centre.

Like Dutch bounty hunters during the Second World War21, the death squads were recompensed in cash directly in proportion to the number of kills they had totted up. A Sikh lady was privy to a revealing conversation between a local police inspector and a mob.

Even though the police were ‘otherwise apprehending and killing Sikhs,’ this particular inspector had taken pity on her and her two sons. He was berated by the ringleaders for not handing over the boys, which would be ‘putting them to a loss of 500 [£34] rupees each’.22

Policemen also acted as conduits between senior colleagues and the gangs, passing on information and instructions. On the morning of 1 November in Jahangirpuri in the north of the capital, the police were overheard explaining to mobs: ‘You have thirty-six hours. Do whatever you wish to do’. Residents testified that it was the police themselves who burnt down the local gurdwara.23

When police officers arrived at one housing block in Yamuna Vihar in north-eastern Delhi, they reportedly informed the mob that they ‘had the rest of the evening and the night to kill the remaining Sikhs’. Similar instructions were given to death squads unleashed in other areas where they were permitted three days to finish off any lingering Sikhs. On 3 November, police officials from Khajori police station in the north-eastern part of the capital actually reprimanded the mobs for not having ‘completed the job’ of slaying all the local Sikhs despite being given three days to do it.24

The Delhi police force boasted thousands of Sikhs in their ranks so the question arises: ‘Where were they?’ The answer is simple – they were all ordered to stand down. A radio order from headquarters in New Delhi on the morning of 1 November required all Sikh police officers to ‘lay down their arms’.25 In such a defenceless state some were murdered en route to their homes or later on with their families.

Sikhs were however still able to rely on some police officers who were intent on fulfilling their duty. On 1 November, Maxwell Pereira, the additional deputy commissioner of police based in the north district of the capital, had that morning been pulled out of his area and sent to Teen Murti House. When he heard over the radio that disturbances were taking place at the historic Gurdwara Sis Ganj near the Red Fort in the northeast of Delhi, he rushed to the spot.

When he arrived he saw hundreds of people marching towards the shrine. The Sikhs inside responded by coming out brandishing their swords. At that point, Pereira intervened by convincing the Sikhs that he was responsible for their safety and that they should remain within the gurdwaras premises. He also escorted several Sikhs who had been hiding in nearby lanes to the shrine.

With twenty or so policemen, Pereira managed to keep the two groups separated. On hearing that Sikh-owned shops in Chandni Chowk to the west of the gurdwara were being torched, he headed off to disperse the arsonists. But they lingered, becoming increasingly menacing and continued to burn properties. Pereira ordered a colleague to open fire and one person dropped dead, which had an immediate impact on the crowd. Potentially hundreds of people had been saved by Pereira’s actions.

When he reported the firing to the police control room, no one responded. When he attempted to bring the matter to the attention of his superiors, Additional Commissioner Hukum Chand Jatav and Commissioner Subhash Tandon, their ‘pin-drop silence’ troubled him.26

Another non-Sikh officer who helped significantly was Inspector Ranbir Singh, the station house officer at Karol Bagh. He held looters back and kept Sikhs in his area safe, even to the point of rushing on foot to disperse a crowd as his jeep had engine issues. Almost no Sikh shops were attacked in his district because of his vigilance.27

One of the few policemen who risked his career in pursuit of his duty was Jugti Ram, duty officer at Kalyanpuri police station. He rescued Sikh women who had been abducted to nearby Chilla village in the eastern part of Delhi and sent a radio message to his superiors informing them about the large-scale massacre that had taken place in Block 32 in Trilokpuri. He recorded the same in his logbook. He was subsequently suspended and a case of criminal negligence filed against him as punishment for defying the order to not record the killings of Sikhs. In stark contrast, officers who acted in accordance with the directives not to log crimes against Sikhs were subsequently promoted.28

For the small proportion of crimes that were logged, the police did their utmost to ensure that any cases that were heard would have little chance of success.

Evidence was manipulated, major offences reduced to minor ones, paper trails destroyed, and eyewitnesses threatened and forced to sign affidavits placing the police in a favourable light.29 Of the crucial FIRs that were completed, they were done so inadequately. The names and addresses of alleged perpetrators were left out even when they were known. To downplay the stats that would clearly prove the extent of the violence, they merged hundreds of cases of murder and violence into a single ‘vague and generally worded omnibus’ FIR and counted them as one crime. Nearly half of the cases lodged were closed on the grounds that the culprits were purportedly ‘untraceable’.30 They refused to register FIRs against police officers and government officials but instead registered them against Sikhs who had defended themselves. Several policemen even reportedly wrote false affidavits after pretending to be victims to absolve Congress leaders who had been seen allegedly inciting mobs. It came as no surprise therefore when an official commission found in 2005 that police investigations had been ‘absolutely casual, perfunctory and faulty’.31

In illustration of the impact of police connivance, human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, who represented several victims, summarised the judgements in 126 court cases that had had their day in court by 2002. A staggering 118 cases ended in acquittals. Of the eight that resulted in convictions, two were later overturned by the Delhi High Court. Her assessment of the police’s role was damning:

It is clear that a combination of grave lapses of investigation, shoddy investigation, inordinate delays, insufficient collection of evidence and non-compliance with legal procedures by the police led to a majority of cases concluding in acquittals. The acquittals were to a very large extent a direct consequence of the incompetent, unprofessional and casual investigation by the police.

Vrinder Grover. Research study on the responses of the legal system to the incidents of violence in October – November, 1984.

Beyond the police stations, in the killing fields of Delhi’s streets, policemen collaborated in the concealment of the number of dead.32 Corpses that had been left partially incinerated were promptly disposed of – in some cases, the ashes were merely swept away.33 Relatives who complained that the bodies of their loved ones were not handed over were victims of a deliberate operation to ensure only minimal numbers of deaths were reported.34 There was no dignity for the dead and no denying who was, in part, clearly culpable.

Virtually all attempts to investigate the police’s role in 1984 have been curtailed. The first official inquiry into their role began in 1985 and was headed by Ved Marwah, who was an inspector general of Special Branch. Early on, attempts were made to halt Marwah’s investigation in the High Court allegedly by several police officers, including the then deputy commissioners of police in South and East Delhi.35 They failed to stop him and Marwah continued with his probe into the actions of his colleagues.36

In an arduous three-month process, documents were gathered from individual police stations, the police control room and the commissioner’s control room, and the interviewing of eyewitnesses undertaken. But when Marwah was about to question senior officials – namely the capital’s lieutenant governor and its police commissioner at the time of the massacres – he was ordered to stop by his superior, Police Commissioner S. S. Jog. No explanation was given but Marwah claims it was ‘due to political pressure as the report would have been an embarrassment for the Congress government’. His findings clearly pointed to the police being culpable of shielding the mobs in a cataclysmic failure of duty.37

In 2013, Marwah was summoned to appear in court for defamation against police officers, including Chander Prakash. Although his was an official inquiry, the government has failed to defend Marwah or show any support.38

A second inquiry into the role of the police was set up in 1987. The Kusum Mittal Committee identified seventy-two police officers involved in the violence. They found both Station House Officer Shoorveer Singh Tyagi of Kalyanpuri police station (who was described as a ‘living shame’) Deputy Commissioner Sewa Dass (similarly described as a ‘slur’ on the police) were responsible for the mass murders and destruction in the killing lanes of Trilokpuri due to their alleged actions – firstly, by disarming Sikhs who had gathered together, and secondly, by standing by while the mobs went on the attack.39

While recommendations were made for further investigations, none of the accused Kalyanpuri police officers were ever brought to justice, despite overwhelming evidence submitted by victims and journalists. Instead, the key suspects actually went on to gain higher office. Dass was promoted to special commissioner of Delhi police, and Tyagi stepped into the shoes of assistant commissioner of police.

Other senior officers shrouded in guilt were also rewarded for their fealty to their political masters. Nikhil Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Police, later become head of the National Security Guard before taking on the governorships of Nagaland and Kerala. Hukam Chand Jatav was accused by the station house officer of Patel Nagar police station of refusing to act even after being alerted to the murders and arson taking place in Karol Bagh by journalists.40 The Kusum Mittal Committee summed up his role as ‘questionable, partisan and inexcusable’.41 Despite this, he was allowed to remain as additional commissioner of police until July 1985.42

The Indian police’s role in facilitating the 1984 Sikh Genocide.

  1. Chapter 84: Introduction, Youtube, posted by ‘Cobra Post’, 21 April 2014. ↩︎
  2. Chapter 84: An investigation into the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, Cobrapost, 1 July 2016. ↩︎
  3. Delhi cops, govt ‘colluded’ during 1984 anti-Sikh riots: Sting operation, The Times of India, 22 April 2014. ↩︎
  4. Chapter 84: An investigation into the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, Cobrapost, 1 July 2016. ↩︎
  5. Sanjay Suri, ‘In Kamal Nath, Congress finds a dubious general for Punjab’, CNN News18, 14 June 2016. ↩︎
  6. ‘Annexure II, Eye-witness account – Rahul Kuldip Bedi and Joseph Maliakan’, Who are the Guilty?, 1984. ↩︎
  7. Amiya Rao et al, Truth about Delhi Violence: Report to the Nation, 1985. ↩︎
  8. Delhi Police kept eyes ‘closed’ during 1984 anti-Sikh riots: CBI, India Today, 31 March 2012. ↩︎
  9. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 25. ↩︎
  10. ‘Police Lawlessness’, Amiya Rao et al, Truth about Delhi Violence: Report to the Nation, 1985. ↩︎
  11. ibid. ↩︎
  12. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 25. ↩︎
  13. Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, written arguments to Misra Commission, 1987 ↩︎
  14. Amiya Rao et al, Truth about Delhi Violence: Report to the Nation, 1985. ↩︎
  15. ibid. ↩︎
  16. Devika Chhibber, Rediscovering the phantoms of 1984, Zee News, 7 November 2009. ↩︎
  17. Amiya Rao et al, Truth about Delhi Violence: Report to the Nation, 1985. ↩︎
  18. Jaskaran Kaur, Twenty Years of Impunity, 2006, p 50. ↩︎
  19. Jarnail Singh, I Accuse… The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984, 2011, p 26. ↩︎
  20. Kuldip Singh Bhogal, Hari Nagar Ashram, ‘Affidavit’, Nanavati Commission, 2005 ↩︎
  21. Dutch bounty hunters preyed on Jews during Holocaust, study shows, The Times of Israel, 19 April 2013. ↩︎
  22. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 77. ↩︎
  23. Amiya Rao et al, Truth about Delhi Violence: Report to the Nation, 1985. ↩︎
  24. ibid. ↩︎
  25. Sanjay Suri, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, 2015, p 127. ↩︎
  26. Sanjay Suri, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, 2015, p 100.  ↩︎
  27. Sanjay Suri, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, 2015, p 131. ↩︎
  28. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 120. ↩︎
  29. Tusha Mittal, A pack of wolves in khaki clothing, Tehelka, 25 April 2009. ↩︎
  30. ibid. ↩︎
  31. Justice Nanavati Commission of Inquiry 1984 (Anti-Sikh Riots), Volume One, 2005, p 5. ↩︎
  32. Tusha Mittal, A pack of wolves in khaki clothing, Tehelka, 25 April 2009. ↩︎
  33. Who are the Guilty?, 1984. ↩︎
  34. Delhi cops, govt ‘colluded’ during 1984 anti-Sikh riots: Sting operation, The Times of India, 22 April 2014 ↩︎
  35. Sanjay Suri, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, 2015, p 69. ↩︎
  36. Aniruddha Ghosal, Often in records, no entries about police movements, The Indian Express, 3 November 2014. ↩︎
  37. Neeraj Chauhan, Police had shielded 1984 rioters, The Times of India, 31 January 2014. ↩︎
  38. Sanjay Suri, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, 2015, p 77. ↩︎
  39. Tusha Mittal, A pack of wolves in khaki clothing, Tehelka, 25 April 2009. ↩︎
  40. Chapter 84: An investigation into the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, Cobrapost, 1 July 2016. ↩︎
  41. Kusam Lata Mittal, Kusum Lata Mittal Commission of Inquiry, 1990. ↩︎
  42. H. S. Phoolka, 30 yrs of commissions & omissions, The Tribune, 2 November 2014. ↩︎