1984 Delhi Sikh Genocide - Statements

Statement submitted before the Nanavati Commission

Witness No. 150

Name : Govind Narayan, S/O Ram Narayan

Age : 85 Years

Occupation : Ex – Governor of Karnataka

Address : C-4/2, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi – 110057

On SA

I joined the Indian Civil Service in the year 1939 and retired in 1975 as Defence Secretary, Government of India. I was appointed Governor of Karnataka in 1977 and continued to work there as Governor till April, 1983. Thereafter I retired and settled down in Delhi. I am still active and associated with a large number of Social, Religious, Cultural and Spiritual organizations and have been working for them.

After a very sad and unfortunate riots in October – November, 1984, some of us felt so concerned that we thought appointing ourselves as citizens committee to probe into the matter and give assurance to all the citizens of Delhi that things like that will not be allowed or repeated.

Therefore, Mr Justice Sikri as Chairman and Rajeshwar Dayal, (Indian Foreign Service (Retd.), Badruddin Tyabji, retired Foreign Secretary, myself and Sriniwas Vardan, retired Home Secretary formed ourselves into a Commission. We used to sit regularly every day in the International Youth Centre building near Teen Murti. We had advertised in the newspapers that anyone wanting to give evidence is most welcome.

We had collected a large list, some people even filed affidavits before us. We went and visited almost every locality where incidents of aggression, torture, murder and arson had taken place and we were appalled how a human being could perpetrate such atrocities against another human being. We also visited some Gurdwaras where relief measures were undertaken for the victims.

We talked to a large number of persons in various localities and heard their tales of woe. We also met representatives of some NGOs who are working for the relief of victims and heard stories from them. On the basis of the evidence recorded by us, on the basis of the affidavits we had received and on the basis of our personal visits to the sites and after having talked to the mothers and widows of the persons killed, we issued notices to the persons who were named and accused of having incited or encouraged aggression to come before us and make their statements.

We also wrote letters to the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi and also to some Ministries concerned because besides the loss of life there was tremendous loss of property and people had lost their vocations and they all had to be compensated. Unfortunately, we had not received any reply either from Prime Minister or from any officer of any Ministry. Some of us were of the view that the names of the accused should be mentioned in our report but the other amongst us thought that without giving them a chance for defending themselves, it will not be fair from the view of the natural justice to put down their names in writing.

So, with all these considerations we prepared our report, which was unanimous and signed by all the members. [The Report is taken on record and marked as Ex.W.150/1]. We sent it to the Prime Minister, to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Finance. Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation and to several other Ministries concerned. In our view the compensation that the Government had temporarily announced was not at all adequate.

In our view Government should have taken action against the culprits and those who had incited or stimulated the law – breakers because we have the evidence that in some areas there was previous planning for such attacks. In some areas cross marks have been put on the doors of the houses of Sikhs residents and these places were attacked on the following days. In our view Delhi's law and order was almost at complete stand still for two days after the occurrences and it is only when the army was called that the situation could come under control.

It appears that the whole thing was so sudden that there was no planning or no preventive action was taken, although in our view there was sufficient indication that something like this could happen because when the body of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was lying for people's darshan the crowd which was passing by raised a cry 'Khoon – Ka – Badla – Khoon – Se – Lenge'. Immediate action should have been taken, in our view to stand prepared to take this call as a warning and to tell the people that a thing like that will not be tolerated. In our view what happened in Delhi at that time was a disgrace to Delhi, disgrace to the citizens of Delhi and was a disgrace to humanity.

In the Trans Yamuna area, which we had visited some lofs of wood which have been used to burn bodies were still lying there. The hair of people who have been killed were produced by mothers and widows before us. In Palam colony we had noticed large scale looting of the property and a temporary Gurdwara was also found damaged.

Definitely there were lot of evidence before us in Trans Yamuna area where people had told us that H.K.L. Bhagat, a Congress leader, had planned an organized massacre there. There was evidence before us that in other areas the people who were instigating and organizing with petrol tins / kerosene tins to set houses on fire and here the names of Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler were mentioned. Some of these names also figure in the various affidavits that were filed before us.

[Cross examination deferred]

Read over and found correct.

(Govind Narayan) (G.T. Nanavati)

24th January, 2002

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