~ere was a glint of madness in
• their eyes. And mtp"der etched across their faces. ' Ominous shouts and cries of 'Koi sardar hair Coli se maar dalenge' followed. We were all shocked into a state of stunned numbness. We were a group of 20 Sikhs on our way to Delhi for a wedding. And when we boarded · the Deluxe from Calcutta at 10 am on October 31, ' we had never imagined that death and destruction were in store for us. It was at 12.30 pm that we first heard that Mrs Gandhi had been . shot by her bodyguards and 'w as , in hospital. Our instant reaction was one of disbelief. The confirriled news of Mrs Gandhi's tragic assassination reached us over the radio at about 6.30 pm. And it was only then that we learnt that the two assailants were Sikhs . Every passenger irrespective of his religion was in a state of shocked silence. But not one had anticipated the disaster that awaited us at Ghaziabad. . The train reached Ghaziabad (two hours from Delhi) at 11 am the · next day. That was the beginning 'of two harrowing hours for ' us, when we were suspended between life and death. A bloodthirsty mob, almost like a pack of hungry wolves hunting for prey, went from coach to coach in search of Sikhs. In a frenzy of madness, the mob, armed with iron rods and knives, brutally dragged out . Sikhs. burnt their turbans, hacked them to death and threw them across the tracks. Even the old and feeble were not spared. The barbaric mob, totally devoid of
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Weekly staffer Payal Singh describes the terror of a train journeyo.n November 1. rationality, declared that women were locked from inside. And we would be spared. But in what waited wlth bated breath. The sense were they spared? After all , mob, hell-bent on destruction. what can be more torturous for was not to 'be deterred. Then it women than seeing male membegan. They pounded on the bers of their famil v hacked to heavy metal door for over 15 death in front of their eyes? minutes. The incessatlt pounding The only sardars who were was accompanied by threats to spared were the six with us. And set the trai'n on fire. One non-Sikh all because of the concern and passenger shifted uncomfortably co-operation of the passengers in in his seat and felt that all of them our coach. Before the train even would lose their lives if the door halted at Ghaziabad, the hystericwas not opened. But he was ul moo hud cuughtu glimpse of stornly ' reprimanded by tho the six sardars with us, A fusilothers who declared that under lade of stones followed and the no circumstances would the door glass windows were smashed to be opened. bits. Shutters were hastily put But the mob finally broke open down for proteGtion, The police, the door. Their violent mutilation we were told. could not control of the train had only whetted the wild mob and so they just '. their appetite for more destructurned their backs and walked tion. away. The . savage mob stormed into We had a ladies' compartment our coach. And walked past the and the other passengers in our ladies' compartment. But before coach. realising there was more we could even sigh with relief, trouble ahead suggested that the they turned around and demansardars in our group occupy it. At ded that the door of the ladies ' first, they were reluctant but we compa.rtment be opened, so that literally. forced them to' stay inthey 'could check it. side. It was ironic. Sardars, who By now our nerves had reached were historically known for their breaking point Yet we Couldn't valoUr now had to protect themlose our composure lest they susselves by hiding in a ladies' coin- . pect that ~omething was amiss. . We tried to convince them that parfment or else become· victims there were just women inside but of 8 hysterical horde. Two ladies the mob was adamant. And began were sent into the 'ladies' compartment so that they could to bang on the door. They seemed answer if any questions were to grow suspicious at the sight of asked. a number of women outside the ladies' compartment atld point- . The main doors of the coach
However.among the poor Sikhs. the worst victims were those who were a little more prosperous as a result of employment in the Gulf countries. For ins tance in Sultanpuri , the scene of one of the worst ca rnages of the city, the blocks which were most seriou sly affected were A-4 and C-4 blocks which hOIl., c;! Ilw relatively more prosperous among th e Sikhs. The kind of 'engineered riot' that Delhi witnessed raises a number of political and moral issues: The first and the most important point to remember is that the victims of engineered riots are always substitutable. The Sikhs were attacked in these riots by the machinery of terror that has been built up in the c it y. The goondas who did the killing and looting were nol doing so beC<JUse :hey believed in a particular ideology or because th ey were religio us fanatics. They did so because the political bosses, who proVided them protection during n ormai times agains t the implementation of law, had ordered them to attack a particular group . Mrs Gandhi's hurn . death at most pravided a vag ue .
com mitt ees were formed, to defend th e locali ty from outsiders. · At the individual level Sikh families were give n shelter by Hindu. Muslim and other non·S ik h neighbours. That is whv in these locali ties , th e cas ual ities' mostly resulted from attacks on individual Sikhs found on th e roads, Ilo\vt! v l~r, in 11 fow lIppnr lind l1Iiddl" loca lities houses were identified. attacked and people killed in dacoi· ty- like opera ti ons; in some -o thers. Sikhs could not be saved fr om well· organised, frenzied, large mobs. The worst sufferers of the attacks were the poor in the resettlement colo nies where the killers and 100ters carried out th eir operations on Novembe r 1. 2 and 3. In these colonies , th e mobs were led by the Illl:a I politicia ns and the cri minal elements of the neighbourh ood. Wit· nesses describe how a mob wou'ld go frum house to IlLluse, call alit the na mes of each person and drag him down to be hit, doused with kerosene, and burnt. Thus, it was not outsiders but some neighbours who led the attacks, killed, and l.
IIKOI SARDAR HAI?~'
ing towards us asked the oth~x: passengers. "Are these women< travelling alone?"And~·befo~.igl _ could baran eyelid, ~'No; th~Y:8rf!,'. with us," came the quicl(reply~ The other passengers coul.dil~t have been more co-opera~v';~ ~;H The petrified screams of tht' ; two ladies from inside. our plllliB" and the persuasion of the ' othet· passengers finally seemed to COI.l- , vince the mob that there were no . sardars inside. And the mob retreated. After two hours of excru~: ciating agony. we could almost : collapse' with sheer relief. , c. ~: ;: We hoped that conditionsJil: Delhi would be better. But no security arrangements had been made at the station. As a result, there were more than 500 sardars stranded. at the waitirig. room, while the women left the station to make arrangements for them. '1 left the station at 3 pm with the ladies in our group; while the sardars with us-who were the only ones on the train to survive the ghastly disaster-waited · at the station. They removed dead bodies from the train and assisted the injured. By Bp.m, we .were successful in making arrangements for them to be taken ouro! the station.. . In a state of stupefied silence, I saw bodies of sardars with rivulets of blood streaming down their faces, being unloaded from the train in which I had travelled. Brutally battered bodies of~nnp cent Sikhs reached Dolhl , from other incoming trains.as well.' In· nocent people who pad "(Jone nothing. Except for beiDg Sikhf and travelling towards Delhi OJ] that fateful day. ' . <'"
justificati on to th ese criminal ele- being ' systematically killed . ments for wha t they had to do in any since then the sta te has c1ai case. We feel that it is perfectly insufficient coercive power fo within the world view of these politi- inaction. (Almost all police offi cians to engineer similar attacks on of Delhi accused of colla bora other groups, be they religious, with rioters or of direct participa ethnj c or political. What has hap- in the riot have pleaded that pened t0 the Sikhs and in the earlier co uld not get reinforcements.) riots to the Muslims ca n any day dp.nt ly. the fabulous increase ill happen to South Indians, Marwaris, size of the. 'law-enforcing force ' leftists , harijans. students or suppor- recen t years has diminished, ters of opposition parti es . The increased, the security of the citi machine has been built. It is only ~ Third, the manner in which matter. of time before it finds new autonomy of institutions has i victims. eroded can be witnessed in a ( Second, the law and order such as this. Though even relati machinery in the capital of India low-level officials of the state was deliberately brought to a stand· legally permitted to declare CUI still for 48 hours, when the police, no one dared to do so in Delhi i) the administration and the army did first two days of rioting bec not know about the appropriate au· th ei r superiors did nol. thorities from whom orders cou ld be at is 'true of thl received. Ordinarily the state con. and order mach fronts violence from a section of the is also tnle 0 ' people with more violence. Yet, in spite of the treme ndolls increase public bro<fdc2 systems, worki) in the coercive ap paratus of the Indian state in recent years, it re- arms of the state. No.1 only wa mained silent and passive for three an nouncement of the death oj days while innocent citizens were Gandhi' inordinately delayed,
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