I N D E X
In
the aftermath of the carnage, one of the issues that the Opposition parties
disputed with the Rajiv Gandhi Government was the exact death toll. Barely
a month after the carnage, Atal Behari Vajpayee released a survey conducted
by the BJP of the killed persons. It’s estimate was about 2,700, a figure
worth recalling because it is very close to the official death toll finally
determined by the Government almost three years later.
A
committee headed by the then home secretary of Delhi Administration, R.K.
Ahooja, conducted a detailed survey drawing on diverse sources like the
FIRs, compensation claims and the list provided by the Citizens Justice
Committee (CJC). The Ahooja
committee also put notices in newspapers inviting the public to give information
about deaths in Delhi during the 1984 carnage. The figure the Ahooja committee
arrived at in August 1987 after this elaborate (though belated) exercise
is 2,733.
Earlier,
the Government bandied much smaller figures. A month after the carnage,
home minister P.V. Narasimha Rao told a parliamentary committee that about
800 people were killed during the carnage. But in the course of the Misra
Commission’s proceedings, the Government increased its estimate of the
deaths in Delhi to 2,307. This
was in response to the CJC’s much higher estimate: 3,949.
The Misra Commission therefore suggested the appointment of a committee to settle the issue. Misra also observed that the correct death toll would be somewhere between the Government’s estimate of 2,307 and the CJC’s estimate of 3,949. In the event, the Ahooja committee concluded that the number of people killed in the 1984 carnage in Delhi alone is 2,733.
