35 YRS AFTER ANTI-SIKH VIOLENCE
On this day 35 years ago, thousands of Sikh families lost their loved ones in a spate of violence unleashed by mobs that set their home and hearth on fire in Delhi and other parts of the country after the assassination of then PM Indira Gandhi. Several survivors have rebuilt their lives. HT takes a look.
LUDHIANA: Time has failed to erase the scars of traumatic memories of the 1984 violence from the brain of Harcharan Singh Channi, 59, a property dealer in the Dugri area of Ludhiana. Channi was 23 when he lost his elder brother, then 27, in riots that broke out in Kanpur. After the tragedy, the family relocated to Punjab.
Settling in Ludhiana and starting right from the scratch was never easy. He and his family spent 45 days at a camp before they shifted to a temporary accommodation. “There was no help for us. Many riotaffected families are still fighting a battle to get compensation,” he says.
Channi, who is now the president of the Punjab Danga Peerat Welfare Association, started working as a scrap dealer initially after displacing from Kanpur. Slowly picking up the pieces, his long struggle bore fruit and a few years ago, he opened a tiles shop for his son. “Memories of 1984 still haunt my mother, who is 90 years old,” he says.
“My elder brother Bhagat Singh was pushed off the second floor of his Kanpur flat. The attackers kept on beating him up until he fell unconscious and later died,” he says trying to control his tears.
“Now, I am settled in Ludhiana with my wife, son and two daughters. My brother’s widow Manjit Kaur and her children stay with us. While it all seems a thing of the past, the scenes of violence and my brother’s death still torment us,” he says.