New Delhi: Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was awarded life imprisonment by a special court for the murder of a father-son duo in Delhi's Saraswati Vihar area during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The court on February 12 convicted Sajjan Kumar for the offense and sought a report from Tihar Central Jail authorities on his psychiatric and psychological evaluation in view of a Supreme Court order asking for such a report in cases attracting capital punishment.
The minimum punishment for murder is life imprisonment whereas the maximum is death. The complainant in the case, who lost her husband and son in a mob attack during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots allegedly incited by Kumar, requested the maximum penalty of death for him.
The 1984 anti-Sikh riots were triggered by the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her Sikh bodyguards. Sajjan Kumar, a powerful Congress leader and MP at the time, was also implicated in the killings of five people in Delhi's Palam Colony on November 1 and 2, 1984. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court in that case, and his appeal is still pending before the Supreme Court.
