1984 Sikh Massacre by tanveer singh

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1984 Sikh Massacre

4000 Sikhs were killed/tortured in

3 days after October 31st

1984



What happened in Delhi?

October 31, 1984:

9.20 am: Indira Gandhi was shot by two of

her security guards Satvant Singh & Beant Singh at her residence

± 11 am: Announcement on All India Radio

specifying that the guards who shot IndiraGandhi were Sikhs.



4 pm: Rajiv Gandhi returned from West

Bengal and reached AIIMS. Incidents of attacks on Sikhs in and around that area starts.

� 5.30 pm: The cavalcade of President

Zail Singh, who returned from a foreign

visit, was stoned



� Late evening : Mobs fanned out in

different directions from [the hospital].

The violence against Sikhs spread. Theviolence included the burning of

vehicles and other properties of Sikhs.

That happened even in VIP areaswhere cars and scooters belonging to

Sikhs were burnt.



Despite all these, no measures were

taken to control the violence or prevent further attacks on Sikhs throughout thenight between October 31 and

November 1.



� N ovember 1, 1984:

� Several Congress leaders specially JagdishTytlor & Sajjan Kumar held meetings on the

night of October 31 and morning of

November 1, mobilising their followers to

attack Sikhs on a mass scale.� The first killing of a Sikh reported from east

Delhi in the early hours of November 1. About

9 am, armed mobs took over the streets of

Delhi and launched a massacre. Everywherethe first targets were Gurudwaras



Mobs were armed with iron rods.

Activist editor Madhu Kishwar saw someof the rods being distributed among themiscreants. Mobs also had an abundant supply of petrol and kerosene.

Victims traced the source of keroseneto dealers belonging to the Congress

party.



� Every police station had a strength of about 100 men and 50-60 weapons. Yet, no action

was taken against miscreants in most places.

� The few places where the local police stationtook prompt measures against mobs, hardly

any killings took place there. Farsh Bazar and Karol Bagh are two such examples.

� All the Sikhs who fired in self-defence were

disarmed by the police and even arrested ontrumped up charges.



Most of the mobs were led by Congress

members. For instance, a Youth Congress leader

called Satsangi led a mob in the posh

Maharani Bagh. The worst affected areas were however

far flung, low income colonies like

Trilokpuri, Mongolpuri, Sultanpuri andPalam Colony.



� N ovember 2,1984:

� Curfew was in force throughout Delhi ±but only on paper.

� The Army was also deployed

throughout Delhi but nowhere was it effective because the police did not co-

operate with soldiers. Meanwhile, mobs

continued to rampage with the same

ferocity.



N ovember 3,1984:

It was only towards the evening of November 3 that the police and theArmy acted in unison and the violence

subsided immediately after that.

Whatever violence took place the next

two or three days was on a muchsmaller scale and rather sporadic.



Afterma

thof th

e carnage: Most of the arrested miscreants were

released at the earliest. But the Sikhs

arrested for firing in self-defencegenerally remained in detention forsome weeks.

Worse, there was also a patternthroughout Delhi of the police not registering proper cases on the

complaints of victims.



I t took 6 Months for the Government to

accede to the inquiry demand.� Though the massacre took place in the first

three days of November 1984, the inquiry was appointed only on April 26, 1985.

� The Government was however prompt inordering an inquiry into Indira Gandhi¶sassassination, which had triggered themassacre.

� It took just four days to announce a judicial inquiry into the assassination.



� The Bharatiya Janata Party contradicted

the Government¶s claim then that only 600 people were killed in the Delhi

carnage.

� On the basis of a survey done by itscadres, the BJP came out with a death

toll of 2,700, which is remarkably close

to the official tally of 2,733 arrived at

three years later.



The Beginning Freedom StrugglePunishment suffered

Hanged 93 28 121

Imprisoned for life 2147 499 2646

killed at Jallianwalla Bagh 799 501 1300

Killed at Budge Budge Khat 67 46 113

Killed in Kooka Movement 91 - 91

Killed in Akali Movement 500 - 500

Grand total 3697 1074 4771

TotalNon SikhsSikhs



84-11The injustice Continues



T his youth was first dressed like a girl, complete with bangles, nail polish,

braids and face powder, and then killed.

How would the police justify this encounter?



T hanks to Mrs.Indira

Gandhi For this

disastourous

incidence



THANK YOU

Any Queries Friends

??????

1984 Sikh Massacre by tanveer singh

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