1984 Delhi Sikh Genocide - Affidavits

Affidavit submitted before the Nanavati Commission

I, Madan Lal Khurana S/o S.D. Khurana R/o 3, Safdarjung Road, New Delhi do hereby solemnly affirm and state as under:

1. That during 1984 I was Leader of the Opposition in the Metropolitan Counsel of Delhi and I was also General Secretary of Delhi State Bhartiya Janta Party.

2. That on 1st November, 1984 when violence erupted against the innocent Sikhs in Delhi I tried to speak to Lt. Governor of Delhi but he was not available. Then I called up Commissioner of Police but he was also not available. However, I could speak to Additional Commissioner of Police Mr. H.C.Jatav and I requested him to take immediate steps to stop the violence and call the army.

Mr. Jatav informed me that nothing much was happening; only some incidents of looting of property had happened. He said that there was no killings. I countered Mr. Jatav that the mobs were also killing the innocent Sikhs and targeting their properties. Mr. Jatav replied that when an important personality dies there is bound to be some reaction.

I told Mr. Jadav that it is the duty of the police to control violence immediately. I also requested Mr. Jatav to convey to the Lt. Governor and Commissioner of Police my message to call the army at the earliest.

3. I instructed all the BJP workers to protect Sikhs and form Committees to protect their area and not allow the mobs to enter their area.

4. That when I heard that a mob had come to the Kirti Nagar market to loot the shops of Sikhs. I immediately rushed to the market and stopped them from looting the shops. I, with the help of some BJP workers dispersed the mob.

5. That on 3rd November, 1984 I received a call from the wife of N.S. Vasant, then Chairman PSEB that her son-in-law Mr. Virdi had been killed by the mob in Patel Nagar and she requested me to get the dead body of Mr. Virdi from the police.

6. That soon after the call of Mrs. Vasant I received a call from Giani Zail Singh, the then President of India. Giani ji stated that it was not the President of India who was calling Khurana but it was Khurana's friend Zail Singh who was speaking. Giani ji told me that one of his relatives Mr. Virdi had been killed in Patel Nagar and requested that I should help the family in getting the body of Mr. Virdi to perform his last rites.

7. That I went to the Patel Nagar Police Station and I met Mr. Ram Murthy, the Assistant Commissioner of Police. I requested Mr. Ram Murthy to handover the body of Mr. Virdi to his relatives. Mr. Ram Murthy told me that he could not handover the body to the family as he had the orders not to handover the bodies to relatives. However, Mr. Ram Murthy told the time and place of cremation of the body and said that the family members could come to the electric crematorium at the time of cremation.

8. That on 3rd November, 1984 in the evening i.e. 3 days after the killings started, the then Lt..Governor of Delhi called a meeting of Leaders of all the political parties for the first time. While I was going to the Lt.Governor's house I saw 3 trucks loaded with the dead bodies standing at Subzi Mandi mortuary.

9. That Atal Behari Vajpayeeji directed me to conduct a survey to find out as to how many people had been killed in Delhi. The then Government of Delhi was not giving any accurate figures as a result of this directions we carried out our own survey. I instructed the BJP workers to go to the houses in their areas and the relief camps to prepare the list.

10. That after the survey we prepared a provisional list of about 2800 persons killed in Delhi.

11. That I became the Chief Minister of Delhi in December, 1993. Soon after becoming the Chief Minister I constituted a Committee under the Chairmanship of Justice RS Narula, former Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court to advise me on the steps to be taken to bring guilty to book and ensure due punishment to them in accordance with the Law.

This Committee i.e. Narula Committee submitted its report to me. This Committee stated that based on the affidavits of 21 person, Jain Aggarwal Committee had earlier recommended registration of criminal cases against Sajjan Kumar and H.K.L. Bhagat. The then Lt. Governor Markande Singh had accepted the recommendations of Jain Aggarwal Committee and ordered that the cases be registered in the year 1991. The Delhi Government sent these cases to the CBI for registration.

However, CBI returned these cases to Delhi Govt. on the ground that CBI had no time. Since 1991 till the beginning of 1994 when the Narula Committee submitted the report to me, these affidavits had been lying with the Home Department of Delhi Government and no case was registered. When I took over as Chief Minister, Home Ministry of the Central Government called these affidavits to take them out of my reach.

12. That after receiving this report, I requested Home Ministry of Central Govt. to send these affidavits back so that cases could be registered. In spite of my repeated requests these affidavits were not returned by the Home Ministry of Central Govt.

Ultimately, I had to write a letter to the Lt. Governor, Delhi State that if these affidavits were not called back, I as a Chief Minister, Delhi State would file a petition before the National Human Rights Commission that the Central Government was violating the Human Rights by protecting the guilty and not permitting the registration of criminal cases against them. After this threat these affidavits were sent back to Delhi Government.

13. That when these affidavits were sent to Delhi Government they were tied in bundles just like rough papers. It is surprising that even the files were not prepared to safeguard these important papers. Then I had pursued vigorously with the then Lt. Governor to register the cases. After a lot of persuasion these cases were registered.

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