The butcher of Trilokpuri killed 150 sikhs

[Kulbir Singh Bhatia]

Kulbir Singh Bhatia (kbh...@sfu.ca) wrote:

: : [The Indian Express] Sunday, September 15 1996

: : How the butcher led the bloodbath with his cleaver
: : Shivanath Jha

: : NEW DELHI, September 14: The Butcher of
: : Trilokpuri. Till the morning of November 2, 1984,
: : this description of Kishori would not have had an
: : diabolic ring about it. After all, Kishori owned
: : the most popular pork retail outlets in
: : Trilokpuri, a densely-populated, low income group
: : residential suburb in east Delhi. But as that
: : fateful day wore on and the capital was gripped by
: : frenzy that matched anything that has pockmarked
: : its bloody history, Kishori used his meat-cleaver
: : for Independent India's most horrific chapter of
: : ethnic cleansing.

: : Kishori has been sentenced to death twice this
: : week by additional district sessions judge S N
: : Dhingra for his role in the November 1984
: : anti-Sikh riots. There are another 21 murder and
: : rioting cases pending against him and, according
: : to the prosecution, he single-handedly killed
: : around 150 Sikhs in neighbouring Kalyanpuri on
: : that cataclysmic day.

: : During the 11 years of the trial eyewitnesses,
: : still tremulous, recounted in court how a
: : cleaver-wielding Kishori scythed down terrorised
: : Sikhs with unhurried venom. For him, it was
: : apparently just another day at the office. Only,
: : this time his victims were not of the porcine
: : kind.

: : Recalls Ladki Kaur, who saw her husband of two
: : months fall to the deadly swing of Kishori's
: : chopper on that day: "They dragged him out of the
: : house. I saw Kishori stabbing him on the neck. The
: : moment my husband fell down, other members of the
: : mob poured kerosene on him and set him on fire."

: : In court, witness after witness recalled in
: : graphic detail the manic exuberance of Kishori and
: : the way he brought to bear his professional skills
: : in the carnage. He would identify his target, the
: : courts were told, and maul them with a couple of
: : swift swishes of his cleaver. The arsonists would
: : take over immediately, reducing the still-alive
: : victims to human torches.

: : Ganga Devi "cannot forget the day" the four
: : members of her family were done to death within
: : minutes of each other. The insane crowd first
: : pulled out her son Bhopa Singh from the house.
: : Father of four children, Bhopa was stabbed and
: : then set on fire. Moments later, Bhopa's three
: : sons, Pappu, Swaroop and Makan Singh were done to
: : death in similar fashion.

: : Sixty-five-year-old Ganga Devi is today a
: : vegetable vendor in Tilak Vihar, a rehabilitation
: : colony for anti-Sikh riot victims in west Delhi.
: : After hearing of Kishori's conviction, a tearful
: : Ganga Devi expressed her "heartfelt gratitude" to
: : judge Dhingra. "The decision was long overdue, but
: : I still feel relieved. The death penalty is the
: : least that could have been ordered for Kishori."

: : Satnami Bai, the widow responsible for initiation
: : of Congress leader H K L Bhagat's trial in the
: : riots case, is emphatic that justice still eludes
: : them. "Sending one person to gallows is not
: : enough. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in the city
: : within a few hours. Many more convictions are
: : needed."

: : According A K Tandon, the public prosecutor who
: : secured Kishori's conviction, while the man led
: : the mob that killed Sikhs and burnt their houses
: : in Kalyanpuri, the Kalyanpuri police did not react
: : fast enough. By the time Sub-Inspector Manphool
: : Singh reached the spot, just one block of about
: : 100 houses was littered with 83 bodies.

: : A few days later, Manphool Singh rounded up 107
: : people -- including Kishori -- for the carnage.
: : The arrests based primarily on the account of dead
: : men's family members.

: : For the next 11 years, the trial proceeded at
: : snail's pace. This was primarily because the
: : prosecution had bunched these 107 accused as well
: : as another 100 into two groups and these were
: : tried separately as two cases. In August last, the
: : prosecution applied for the "misjoinder" of
: : charges (ie, seeking a separate case file for each
: : accused). Judge Dhingra agreed to this.

: : Significantly, Kishori was earlier acquitted by
: : another trial court headed by S S Bal. But
: : following the misjoinder of charges, he was among
: : the many accused whom the police rearrested.

: : [Image]

[Kulbir Singh Bhatia]

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