A REPORT FR OM THE FARASH 8AZ~AR PO LICE STA -, ~.2 f1! RELIEF CAMP DAY ONE !.9....I...H.£lEE When the ne ws of the Prim e Minister's assassinatioa W~~ " -.,., announced on Octob e r 31, 1984 many of us, in our simplicity ' did not f 831 undul y n ervous. We moved around different parts of the capit a l ci ty trying to assess the reactio"s of the man on the straet . We wait8d to hear about an interim Prime Minister and discu s sed the sequ o nce of events with friends and coll eagu es . What we did not do was worry about the Sikh . commun ity as a whole just because the assassins happened to be Sikhs - af ter al l who worried about the Hindus when Mahatma Gandh i was sh ot? We expocted shock, sorrow, indiffInence, dism·a y , ',·)ha t wa did not ex pect was what began ~ the 31st evening and for somo of us has not ended yet, a~d ror many thousands of others may novor e nd; The burnin g of vehicles , stab bing and stoning began at 6.30 p.m, at thc junction of Safdarjung and Lodi Roads. Mobs of 10 to 15 young men oimed at cars carrying Sikh passengers. At 7 p.m. we dr o ve up to a policeman conducting traffic at this crossing; fivs vehi cles were burning around us. "StoP . the group from stoning" wo shouted "Th ey are only out after the Sardars" we were told s oothingly by the policemgn, as if we shOUld not worry about th3t. "Do o s th .: lt mean they should not be stopped?" We asked. He asked us to driuo on - the police would be ~ their way, wo ·wer e rea ss ured. This reveals the attitudeP the police :Ill 310ng th o way , with a fow oxcep tio~s. For that entire night, th o next day a nd night after that, through to the 8, rly hou rs of November 3, smoke filled the sky, Peaoe marct, ·!s by co ncer n e d citiz~ns , frantl~telephone calls • ~o the Pr es i j en t, the Homo Mi n ist er, the Police Commissioner, a ~d app e ol s by p ri vata ci t iz ons ~ nd political leaders to stop th e s e ns cll o s s ki lling, rioting , I Grl ti ng 'l nd '-'.Irson by calling in th e army im m ~d i ~ t ~ l y w2nt strangoly unh eard throughout those bizarr <J c! aY3. On 3rd Novom bor mo rning, when tha co nc entr3 tion o~ the body of th e l ato ~rime Minister wa s r eachi ng a crescendo with every forc e and d ign it o ry inv o lv e d in th , arrangements for the funeral, members of the 'NAG ARIK EK TA MANCH' came upon the horror of burnt bodies lyi ng in tho narrow streets of Trilokpuri, a tran s Jamuna r e s ~ tt 18me nt Colony not far from the industrial complex of NOIDA. People we r a still hiding in the charred r omai ns of thoir homas ., havinr had no food, water or prot e ction from marauding mo bs for two nights and a day~
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