Delhi grants 4-week parole to 1984 riots convict to file appeal

The Delhi High Court Thursday granted four weeks' parole to Balwan Khokhar who, along with former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

Justice I S Mehta allowed Khokhar's plea to be released on parole to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court order of December 17, 2018, convicting him in the case.

The high court had set aside the trial court's verdict, which acquitted Kumar in a case related to the killings of five Sikhs in the Raj Nagar Part-I area in Palam Colony in southwest Delhi on November 1-2, 1984, and burning down of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar Part-II.

Kumar has already filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the high court's decision.

The riots had broken out after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards.

The high court, in its verdict, had also upheld the conviction and varying sentences awarded by the ..