Supreme Court seeks status report on anti-Sikh riot's SIT probe

New Delhi:  The Supreme Court on Monday sought a comprehensive status report on the probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases being investigated by the SIT set up in 2014. A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice R. Banumathi sought the report as petitioner S. Gurlad Singh Kahlon told the court that the Special Investigation Team has utterly failed in carrying out the probe. The Centre earlier told the court that further investigation was on in 21 out of the total of 221 cases. The court has adjourned the matter for next hearing on February 20. Anti Sikh riots was a series of actions directed against the Sikh community, by anti-Sikh mobs, in response to the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. According to official government report, about 2800 deaths were reported across India, out of which 2100 were in Delhi alone. The mobs attacked their Sikh neighbourhoods, killing any Sikh men or women they could find. Their shops and houses were ransacked and torched. In other incidents, armed mobs stopped buses and trains, in and around Delhi, pulling out Sikh passengers to be doused with kerosene and burnt alive. Others were dragged out from their homes and hacked to death with bladed weapons. Sikh women were reportedly gang-raped.