Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar surrendered before a New Delhi court on the last day of the deadline set by Delhi high court and was sent to jail to serve his life sentence in a case relating to the anti-Sikh riots in 1984.
Kumar, 73, was brought to Mandoli jail in northeast Delhi shortly after he surrendered before Metropolitan Magistrate Aditi Garg, who directed that he be provided a separate van for commuting due to ‘security threat’.
Kumar is the first big politician to be convicted in the riots. In its judgment on December 17, the high court noted that over 2,700 Sikhs were killed in the national capital, holding that the riots was indeed a ‘carnage of unbelievable proportions’.
The riots broke out after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her two Sikh bodyguards.
