Union Government constituted SIT to reinvestigate 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases

Union Ministry of Home Affairs on 12 February 2015 constituted a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) for re-investigation of the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases. The newly-constituted SIT has been empowered to examine fresh evidence in the cases that had even been closed.

The three-member SIT will be headed by Pramod Asthana, an IPS officer of 1986 batch. Other two members of SIT are retired district and sessions judge Rakesh Kapoor and Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police in Delhi Police Kumar Gyanesh.

The SIT will submit its report in six months and it will look into all serious criminal cases related to the riots, examine evidence and even re-open cases and file charge sheets in the courts concerned.

The SIT was constituted on the recommendations of the Mathur Committee. Mathur Committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice GP Mathur was constituted on 23 December 2014 to examine the possibility of constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for reinvestigation of the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases.

The committee submitted its report to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in January 2015 and recommended a fresh probe of the case.

Anti-Sikh riots erupted in Delhi and other northern States of India after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her security guards at her official residence on 31 October 1984. The riots claimed lives of 3325 people (2733 in Delhi and rest were killed in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and other States).