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Kanpur got 24 hours, it scored
127 Sikhs on Killer Scale
WSN Bureau
KANPUR: All hell
broke loose in this cramped and crowded city, over 400 km away from
Delhi,when news of then prime minister Indira Gandhi being
assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, filtered
in. Soon, the organized violence was all over.
As many as 127
Sikhs and eight non-Sikhs lost their lives in the violence that
gripped this city, a major industrial hub in Uttar Pradesh. And
unlike
Delhi
where the violence played out for three days, all the killings were
carried out over a span of 24 hours -- between the night of October
31 and
November 1, 1984.
Armed groups
prowling the streets began targeting Sikhs, who had to literally run
for cover. Their shops were attacked and set ablaze. As evening gave
way to night, the mobs, better organised by then, turned wild,
raiding predominantly Sikh localities. It began when hoodlums,
moving around in groups numbering 40 to 50 people, started
pressuring Sikh shop owners and officekeepers to pull down shutters.
Within hours,
the marauding mobs began burning vehicles, assaulting Sikh employees
returning from offices and factories. Soon they began targeting
houses. With a population of about 30 lakh then,
Kanpur was the
state's biggest city. A large chunk of those who spearheaded the
violence
lived in slums
mushrooming in various parts of the city until then known as the `Manchester
of the East' on account of its huge textile industry, which is
virtually dead now. Significantly, the mobs cutting across party
lines knew their victims.
And like in
Delhi, the authorities looked the other way as killers had a field
day. The alleged support extended to the mobs by then district
magistrate Brijendra Yadav, whose role came in for sharp scrutiny
even by a probe panel as biased against the Sikhs as the Ranganath
Misra Commission, emboldened the marauders.
4
November 2009
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