Allahabad Court to Pursue 1984 Genocide Cases; New Anti-Sacrilege Law on 'Vaisakhi'

March

2026

The Allahabad High Court has rejected petitions filed by nine persons seeking to quash criminal proceedings related to the 1984 Sikh Genocide in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Of the 1,251 First Information Reports filed after the violence which claimed at least 127 lives, the Special Investigation Team set up by the Uttar Pradesh government identified 40 cases as serious. Chargesheets had been filed in 11 cases, while closure reports were submitted in the remaining 29. The team reopened 20 of those 29 cases for further investigation, uncovering fresh evidence in 11 and initiating action against the accused. In the other 9 cases, no new evidence emerged and closure reports were filed again. In 2023, the team concluded its probe identifying the involvement of 96 persons. Of them, 22 had died. It filed chargesheets against the remaining 74 accused. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of India has ruled that only Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs can claim Scheduled Caste status. Conversion to any other religion will lead to complete loss of Scheduled Caste status regardless of birth. The Bench invoked Clause 3 of Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950. Concurrently, on 22 Mar, Panjab Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan met protestors at the ongoing Samana tower protest and announced that the state government would introduce a stronger law by amending the Jagat Jyot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar Act, 2008 (Anti-Sacrilege Act). Since 2015, there have been 597 incidents of sacrilege but only 44 ended in conviction. Addressing a gathering, Sandhwan said the Assembly would convene a special session on 13 Apr, coinciding with Vaisakhi (harvest festival), to pass the amendments. Raising concern over the state's plan, Punjab State Human Rights Commission chief Justice Ranjit Singh asks, 'Can the word of the Guru truly be protected or defined by law?...Can a body of spiritual wisdom be reduced to the language of legal adjudication?...Can a judge determine what constitutes the 'desecration' of a text whose essence lies in the indestructibility of its word? The shabad, (the word) celebrated throughout the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh scripture and charter), is understood in Sikh philosophy as eternal and omnipresent. No physical act upon a printed volume can destroy the spiritual force of that word' (earlier coverage).