Between 1-4 November, trains began to arrive into Delhi with the bodies of dead Sikhs, killed en-route.

When the train reached Tughlakabad station on 2nd November morning, a large number of persons carrying iron rods, axes, crow bars etc. entered our train.  They were searching for Sikh passengers in the train.  They declared that no Sikh will be allowed to leave the train alive.  At that time I found that some Sikhs in the adjoining compartments were pulled down by these outsiders carrying weapons. 

I found two Sikhs killed and thrown on the platform and then their dead bodies were set on fire on the platform.  The police standing on the platform made no efforts to prevent either the killing or burning of the Sikhs.

Affidavit of Prof. Madhu Dandavate1

Michael Hamlyn’s front-page article in The Times of 3 November described how Sikhs were ‘butchered in mob attacks on trains to Delhi’


Michael Hamlyn. The Times. 3 November 1984.
The Times. 3 November 1984.

In both government-led inquiries into the violence, there was also no examination of the reports of the violence that occurred on trains or the forty-six unauthorised stoppages that enabled the mobs to hunt down Sikh passengers.2

New Delhi Railway Station ©Ashok Vahie

Nor was there any investigation into these killings was ever carried out and not a single person was arrested by the Railway Police Force from 31 October to 4 November.3 Despite scores of affidavits and witness testimonies outlining the scale of the killings, the Nanavati Commission decided against pursuing the trail, stating that ‘no one has made any grievance as regards the incidents which had happened at Railway Stations or in trains’.4

The bodies of Sikhs lie in between two railway carriages. Photographer unknown.
  1. Affidavit of Prof. Madhu Dandavate submitted to Misra Commission. ↩︎
  2. Railway Protection Force: Annexure on Unauthorized Stoppages. Appendix IV. Jaskaran Kaur, Twenty Years of Impunity, 2006. ↩︎
  3. Reply by General Manager’s Office (Northern Railway) to Interrogatory on Arrests). 30 November 1985. Appendix VI. Jaskaran Kaur, Twenty Years of Impunity, 2006. ↩︎
  4. G. T. Nanavati, Justice Nanavati Commission of Inquiry 1984 (Anti-Sikh Riots), Volume One, 2005, p 14. ↩︎

From 1 November 1984, trains began arriving in Delhi with the bodies of dead Sikhs, killed en-route.