The police refused to act against rioters during the anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi, 1984, post the assassination of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.  A sting operation on several police officers serving in Delhi during the period by Cobrapost allegedly exposes the partial attitude of the police.

 

The capital police wanted to register their act as a ‘politically correct’ one. This was partly because they wanted to be on the right side of the Congress government of the day, and partly because the police force itself had got communalized. 

 

The sting in fact brings to light 'confessions' by many SHO’s who were posted in the disturbed areas of the capital during 1984. The interviews of two senior cops, ACP Gautam Kaul and then police commissioner S C Tandon, though, yielded no such confessions. 

 

Whereas Tandon dodged all the queries, Kaul claimed that on one occasion when he went to check out reports of rioting near Gurdwara Rakab Ganj, he had to flee since he was unaided in front of a aggressive mob. 

 

This reveals how a whole police apparatus not only failed to act, but colluded with the government of the day to teach Sikhs "a lesson" in one of the most horrible examples of state-sponsored violence against a religious minority. 

 

The SHOs interviewed by undercover reporters were Shoorveer Singh Tyagi of Kalyanpuri, Rohtas Singh of Delhi Cantonment, SN Bhaskar of Krishna Nagar, OP Yadav of Srinivaspuri and Jaipal Singh of Mehrauli. He had submitted an affidavit to an inquiry commission accusing some local politicians of not just participating in the riots but provoking mobs against Sikhs. 

 

Among the more appalling revelations is that messages were transmitted ordering the police not to take action against rioters shouting slogans of "Indira Gandhi zindabad" and that bodies of victims were in some cases dumped far away from the scene of the rioting to reduce the official toll of the riots. 

 

According to sources, while news of arson and rioting poured into the police control rooms, only 2 per cent of the messages were recorded. Later, entries in police logbooks were changed to get rid of evidence of inaction on the part of senior officers.