Lakhwinder Kaur, a Sikh massacre victim complainant against Jagdish Tytler, filed her statement before a special CBI judge in Delhi’s Rose Avenue court.
She told the court that she was told by Granthi Surinder Singh that her husband Badal Singh was killed by a mob at Gurdwara Pul Bangash and that Tytler was instigating the riots. Surinder Singh told him that the titular was telling the rioting crowd “Sikho ko mar do ujaj do, Gurudwara ko aag laga do”.
On November 1, 1984, three Sikh chiefs Sardar Thakur Singh, Badal Singh and Gurcharan Singh were killed in a massacre of Sikhs after the assassination of the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi.
Lakhwinder Kaur told the court that in 2008, when she was making rounds of Karkarduma courts, Surinder Singh, identifying her as Badal Singh’s wife, told her what had actually happened to her husband that day.
Surinder Singh saw the incident from the roof of the Gurdwara. He told me that he had seen my husband coming out of the said Gurdwara and being attacked by the mob, who had taken off my husband’s kirpan and stabbed him to death. Surinder Singh told him that Tytler came to the scene in a vehicle and incited the mob to kill the Sikhs. The mob massacred the Sikhs, and after killing my husband, his body was placed in a cart and burnt with burning tires on top of it. After learning about the circumstances of her husband’s murder, she contacted her lawyer, who filed an application in the Karkarduma court for an inquiry into the said incident. Other people affected by the carnage also consulted me. He said that my statement was recorded by the investigating officer of CBI. She told the court that her husband left her at her village Panthupura, Muzaffarnagar and came back to Delhi two days before the date of the incident.
Five days after her husband’s death, she came to Delhi with her father-in-law after learning about his murder. He told the court, “My elder daughter was 10 months old and my younger daughter was born in 1985 after the death of my husband.”
He also told the court that he was provided a DDA flat in Tilak Vihar, Delhi in 1985 and received Rs 7 lakh in installments as compensation from the government and I was employed as a peon in Tagore Garden in the Government Senior Secondary School. was also given
Relying on the testimony of a witness, the CBI also claimed that Tytler had incited the crowd by shouting, “Kill the Sikhs, they have killed our mother,” quoting Indira Gandhi.
It may be mentioned that the court had on August 30 ordered the framing of charges against Tytler on charges of murder, incitement, rioting, promoting enmity between groups and being part of an illegal assembly. The court said that the material brought on record prima facie showed that the accused was a member of an illegal assembly of people at a gurdwara in that area and the court noted that Tytler had used criminal force against the Sikhs in the mob. or incited to use violence.
The next hearing of the ongoing case has been listed on October 15 for cross-examination by Tytler’s counsel.
