Overview
- He was taken from Tihar Jail to VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital in an altered state on Thursday and was declared brought dead after resuscitation attempts; the hospital said he had a history of high blood pressure and Parkinson’s disease.
- Kumar had been convicted by the Delhi High Court on December 17, 2018 for killings and the burning of a gurdwara in Palam Colony and received a second life sentence from a Rouse Avenue court in February 2025 for the Saraswati Vihar murders.
- At the time of his death he was serving concurrent life terms and had active legal matters, including appeals pending in the Supreme Court and a parole application that was listed for hearing the same day.
- His legal record stretched over decades with cases that swung between acquittals and convictions after a 2015 SIT probe reopened long-closed riots cases, a pattern that emphasised delays, witness problems, and uneven accountability.
- Victims’ families and survivors reacted with anguish for unfinished closure, while the broader record of the 1984 violence—thousands killed in Delhi and only a small share of FIRs ending in convictions—frames why Kumar’s death is likely to revive debates about delayed justice and institutional failures.