Delhi court awards first death penalty in 1984 sikh genocide case after 34 years

A Delhi court on November 20 awarded death sentence to one of the convicts in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in South Delhi’s Mahipalpur. The other convict was awarded life imprisonment.

The court on November 15convicted Yashpal Singh, who was sentenced to death, and Naresh Seharawat for killing two Sikhs and injuring three relatives of one of the deceased during the riots.

“The prosecution was able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that both accused persons took out the victims, who were hiding inside a room, injured them with dangerous weapons with the intention to kill and threw them down from the first floor, which caused the death of Hardev Singh and Avtar Singh,” Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Pandey said while convicting them.

Counsel for the victims, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committed and the prosecution had sought death sentence for the two convicts during arguments on their quantum of sentence.