Three decades on, memories return to haunt Sikh residents

Those who suffered in 1984 lend helping help to riot victims in Trilokpuri

Horror revisited some residents of Trilokpuri for whom the recent communal clash in the middle class colony in east Delhi was a chilling reminder of a bigger carnage during the anti-Sikh riots in 1984.

“Death stared us into our eyes in 1984 and also now,” recalls 73-year-old Gurminder Singh, who resides in Block 21.

It was exactly 30 years ago on November 1 when violence unleashed against Sikhs peaked in the aftermath of the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.

“Though no one was killed this time during the tension between two communities, the threat to our lives reminded us of the riot three decades ago,” says Singh.

“In 1984, I, my wife and son were saved by a Muslim family which lived here,” he adds. “In November 1984 riot, the entire area was engulfed in fire, smoke was rising and we were left scared,” says 78-year-old Dhamol Singh, another resident of Trilokpuri told Deccan Herald.

Ranjot Singh was a teenager in 1984 when rioters killed his mother. The tailor has struggled to get over the shock of losing his mother and the last week’s flare up in Trilokpuri opened his wounds.

"On Friday, people gathered in a similar way as they had 30 years ago. I heard that they were going to attack the Muslim families living here. To save myself, I shut down my shop and asked my children to remain indoors,” he says.

He played a crucial role in saving the lives of his Muslim neighbours. “Just as I was saved by kind hearted Muslims in 1984, I tried to do something for people from that community by helping the Muslim families to hide in my shop and locked it from outside.”

“For three days during the 1984 riots, we were virtually locked inside our homes to save our lives. Now again, the communal tension prevented us from venturing out of homes for four days,” he adds.

In current clash, Shamina, a 53-year-old Muslim woman along with her husband and two sons took shelter in Ranjot Singh’s house. Shamina says: “I, along with family are alive just because of Singh’s family otherwise the mob would have killed us.”

Harmeet Singh, another Sikh from Trilokpuri who witnessed the 1984 riot, says: “Most of the survivors of 1984 riot in the colony, mainly women and children, had left the area. They either returned to their native places in Punjab or relocated to Tilak Nagar in west Delhi.”

“Around a dozen Sikh families are still living in Trilokpuri after the 1984 riots,” he adds. Trilokpuri has the painful history of being home to the worst violence against Sikhs in November 1984, where residents were pulled out of their homes and burnt alive.

Although the area has experienced communal tension regularly over the past three decades, last week’s backlash was the biggest and the most horrifying communal clash since the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, said some of the Sikh families.

The violent clashes that started on Diwali night has left its scars on the memory of the residents of Block 20 of the locality. While two school boys are still recovering from injuries inflicted during the clashes, the fear of a repeat of the rioting and stone-pelting is fresh on the minds of the residents.

“The politicians are trying to extract mileage from the incident, so, there is every likelihood of the incident getting repeated,” says a woman, who had stepped out of her home to pick up vegetables and grocery during a relaxation in restrictions given by police in Trilokpuri.