The terror spreads
The violence was not just confined to the capital. Attacks were soon unleashed on the outer colonies around Delhi and further afield, wherever Sikhs were concentrated throughout the ‘cow-belt’ states of northern India and beyond.
The second most affected place after Delhi was the cosmopolitan city of Kanpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Equally intense was the violence that erupted in Bokaro Steel City and the Chas area in the eastern state of Bihar.
From Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh in the north-west, violence spread across the central northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where close to forty towns were affected by the organised violence. Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west, and Bihar and West Bengal in the east, saw outbreaks of violence, as did Maharashtra in the south-west. The barbarity even reached Assam in the remote north-east of the country.
Immediately when we came out they pounced upon us like blood-thirsty animals. The first blow hit my mother. She was so dazed by this sudden and unprovoked attack that she did not even scream and fell down on the ground. The chopper caused a deep cut on her shoulder and she bled profusely. The attackers did not stop after she had fallen but all of them gave her blows with their weapons causing grievous injuries and thus killed her. The next to be attacked was my younger sister, aged seventeen. A long knife was thrust into her neck, which caused a deep cut and a stream of blood flowed from it. She instantaneously fell down but the criminals continued to hit her till they were sure that my helpless sister was dead.
Affidavit of survivor Narinder Singh of Gammon Colony. Submitted to the Misra Commission, 1987.
A young girl from Bihar recounted how on the morning of 1 November, a large crowd, including some neighbours, marched to her house chanting anti-Sikh slogans. Armed with iron rods, axes, spears and firearms, they managed to break open the front door and dragged out her parents and three brothers, aged sixteen, twenty-five and thirty two. She watched helplessly from a window in another neighbour’s house as her family members were each butchered in turn.
Affidavit of Miss Jasbir Kaur of Gammon Colony. Submitted to the Misra Commission, 1987.
Read more about the attacks in Pahaganj.
While some eyewitness accounts from the riot victims in the camps identify local RSS or BJP workers, the vast majority name Congress-I politicians, including a few MPs. It was no different in relief camps located throughout the city. The majority of the politicians whose involvement was alleged, belonged to the Congress-I.
The Enemy Within. Ivan Fera. The Illustrated Weekly of India. 23 December 1984.
After the first wave of killings, police attached themselves to roaming death squads in the hunt to chase down as many surviving Sikhs as possible. Several people testified that the police were instrumental in repeatedly giving killers free passage into colonies to ensure that those on the murder lists had been accounted for.
Don’t worry; we are coming to burn you too.
A police responding to a survivors’ pleas for help. Quoted in Jarnail Singh, I Accuse… The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984, 2011, page 26.
Impressive platitudes-calling in the army, indefinite curfew, shoot-at-sight orders issued were broadcast over the radio, flashed over television screens and headlined in newspapers for a week till 6 November. ‘Situation under control’ was another well flogged cliche during this period. [But] it was only after 5 November, when the army was eventually issued comprehensive instructions, that curfew was strictly enforced.
Rahul Kuldip Bedi. Politics of a Pogrom. The Assassination and After. Arun Shourie, Prannoy Roy, Shekhar Gupta. Roli Books. New Delhi. 1985.
Police personnel were deployed from a police-training centre in Haryana to create chaos, lawlessness and destruction. A survivor who later testified at an inquiry described how he had managed to get hold of one of those indulging in the violence and recovered an identity card proving he was from the Madhuban Police Training Centre in Haryana.
Affidavit submitted by Kuldip Singh Bhogal, Hari Nagar Ashram, to the Nanavati Commission, 2005.
Read more about the attacks in Nand Nagri.
All India Radio emphasised Indira Gandhi’s killers from a Sikh background. Initial reports on both television and radio painted the attacks as an ‘exchange of fire’, giving the erroneous impression that there was fighting between two communities.
Labouring at a leisurely pace they split open Lachman Singh’s skull and pouring kerosene into the gash set alight the half-alive man in front of Gyan Devi, his wife. Balwant Singh, who tried to escape after shaving himself, had his eyes gouged out before he too was similarly burnt. Sarb Singh, his terror-stricken father-in-law, watched. The sport continued, interspersed with solicitous visits from the local police to ensure that things were going well.
Rahul Kuldip Bedi. Politics of a Pogrom. The Assassination and After. Arun Shourie, Prannoy Roy, Shekhar Gupta. Roli Books. New Delhi. 1985.
In those days they couldn’t possibly believe that almost 3,000 innocents were murdered in 4 days, most of them in broad daylight, in India’s capital city. Not one image of the looting and arson, let alone of the killing, was ever shown on TV.
Aseem Shrivastava, The Winter in Delhi, Counterpunch, 10 December 2005.
It’s all lies that they were outsiders. No one was from outside. They were all from here. We went to the back lane to hide but nobody was willing to hide us. Now of course they’re all saying that they helped a lot. The same people were killing and the same people were doing everything [else].
Nanki Bai, a widow from Kalyanpuri, interviewed by Uma Chakravarti and Nandita Haksar.
Official statements
Fifteen, maybe twenty people have died in violence during the day.
Subhash Tandon, Delhi Police Commissioner and P. G. Gavai, Lieutenant Governor, Delhi. Who are the Guilty? People’s Union for Democratic Rights &
Things are under control.
People’s Union for Civil Liberties, 1984.
End of the day 1st and 2nd of November: all clear, nothing to report.
Diary entries of the police. Sreenivasan Jain, ‘Truth vs hype: 1984 Riots – political complicity, aborted justice’, NDTV, February 8, 2014
Violence targeting the Sikh community of India continues for a third day.
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