‘Didn’t get any help... it was dark all round’

CHANDIGARH: Raminder Singh Nibber, now 79, was a shattered man when his manufacturing unit in New Delhi’s Anand Parbat was burnt down in the 1984 riots. Gathering whatever he had left, Nibber moved to Mohali a few years later and started an industrial unit from a small rented accommodation.

“There was no looking back. We now run a group of companies with annual turnover of ~300 crore, and are growing. One of my companies, Pritika Auto Industries Limited, is listed on the stock exchange,” said a beaming Nibber.

The scars of the violent backlash have not healed. He remembers November 1, 1984 as the darkest day of his life. “There was no help from any side, it was dark all around... There was a loss of confidence. So we shifted all our operations to Punjab,” said Nibber.

“My father’s resilience and the will to fight back brought our business back on track,” said Nibber’s son Harpreet Singh, who joined the company in 1996. The family said it took them 10 years to rebuild their business.

AMRITSAR:DALJIT Kaur, 78, along with her late husband Balwant Singh and two sons—gulsher, now 54, and Bhagel, 50—was forced to move to Amritsar after the family home and a factory in Birpara town of West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district were burnt down by a mob during the anti-sikh riots.

“A day after the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, a mob thronged our factory, which was adjoining our home,” Gulsher Singh said, recalling how the rioters tortured his father and six or seven Sikhs who worked at the factory and set their properties on fire before leaving. “We, somehow managed to save ourselves,” he said.

“We came to Amritsar... The Sikh men, who had been working in our factory, also left. My maternal uncle, Banta Singh, went missing, and till now we have failed to find him. He must have been killed. My younger brother Bhagel could not give his 10th Class examination.”

His father eventually sold the property in Jalpaiguri for ~5 lakh; the property is now worth ~3 crore, said Gulsher.

“We got a tea machinery manufacturing unit, on a huge bank loan, on instalments, in Amritsar. In 2000, we sold this unit, took a bank loan and constructed a new tea machinery manufacturing unit. My father died in 2006 and after this Bhagel returned to Bengal. I and my mother worked 20 hours a day to run the factory. Though we have rebuilt our business, the loss in 1984 will never be forgotten,” said Gulsher Singh.