India, Feb. 26 -- Minutes after a Delhi court sentenced former Congress lawmaker Sajjan Kumar to life imprisonment for leading a mob that brutally killed two Sikhs during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, anguish unfolded outside the Rouse Avenue courts. Several victims of the riots, still bearing the weight of decades-old grief, gathered in protest. Holding placards, their eyes brimming with tears and their voices trembling with pain, they demanded that he be awarded the death penalty.

Among them was 50-year-old Paramjit Kaur, who lost her father to the bloodshed when she was just six. "My father was thrown from the terrace of our house.he sustained 70 stitches on his head before he succumbed," she recalled.

The horror of that day remains etch...