Photo: PTI
New Delhi: The framing of charges against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 Pul Bangash Sikh massacres case was ordered by the Rouse Avenue Court on Friday. Tytler's charges can move forward because there is “sufficient material,” according to Special Judge Rakesh Syal, who is presiding over the case.
The court has ordered charges to be framed under multiple sections of the IPC, including those pertaining to unlawful assembly, promoting enmity between different groups, disobedience to an order, defiling places of worship, murder and abetment.
The case stems from the rioting that broke out in Delhi after Indira Gandhi, the prime minister at the time, was killed on October 31, 1984, by her bodyguards. Three people lost their lives when a crowd assembled in the vicinity of the Pul Bangash gurdwara on November 1, 1984. In May 2023, the CBI filed a chargesheet accusing Tytler, a former Union minister, of using provocative words to incite the mob, the New Indian Express reported.
The chargesheet includes testimony from a witness who claimed Tytler incited the mob when he pulled up in a white Ambassador sedan. The mob's fury was apparently stoked by this encouragement.
A sessions court granted Tytler anticipatory release last year, conditional on him posting a Rs 1 lakh personal bond and a Rs 1 lakh surety.