1984: How we tiptoed in Trilokpuri around mutilated bodies and blood awash lanes

The 30th anniversary of the Sikh pogrom has generated evocative media debate and rerun poignant eyewitness accounts of the mayhem that engulfed Delhi in late 1984.

The wave of ethnic cleansing, which raged unchecked for three days across the capital, within hours of Mrs Indira Gandhi being assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards on the morning of October 31, 1984, ended only with her November 3 funeral.

It seemed that it was only then that the state's bloodlust, directed by the ruling Congress government, was satiated.

Thereafter, army units, deployed several days earlier across Delhi in a haphazard and diffused manner, were issued shoot-at-sight orders by the federal authorities, to control marauding mobs and restore some semblance of order.

After all the earth had moved in response to the big tree falling; and it was now time to move on with politics by exploiting Mrs Gandhi’s murder and the bogey of Sikh separatism to ensure India’s biggest electoral victory ever for her son and heir, Rajiv.

Tens of thousands of dazed Sikhs also staggered out of hiding, many of them flocking to hastily erected refugee camps in gurdwaras and school compounds, as their homes lay charred or pillaged or both.

All were unable to comprehend the cataclysmic events of the previous 72 hours, as the government turned avenger and methodically supervised the massacre of their easily identifiable community.

Nobody had an answer, as they set about the grim task of cremating their dead.

Thirty years on, there is still no answer.

The official death toll in Delhi, in what is decorously referred to as the "1984 Riots", was around 2,730, though a more realistic casualty figure is close to twice that number.

But the casual slaughter of over 350 Sikhs, including women and children, in the trans-Jumna resettlement Trilokpuri colony was, without doubt, the most brutal in the miasma of violence which engulfed the capital exactly three decades ago.

The carnage took place uninterruptedly in Trilokpuri’s Block 32, along two narrow alleyways no more than 150m long, each lined with one-roomed tenements on either side.

It began on November 1 and lasted 48 hours.

The murderers, protected by the local police, never ever caught or arrested, took time off for meals before returning and resuming their senseless slaughter of Dalit migrant Sikhs, who eked out a measly living by weaving charpoys.

Both lanes were littered with bodies, body parts and hair brutally hacked off; this forced reporters like myself and colleagues Joseph Maliakan and Alok Tomar from the Indian Express and Jan Satta newspapers, who first stumbled upon the carnage, to precariously tip-toe down them.

It was impossible to place one’s foot on flat ground, for fear of stepping on either a hacked limb or a dead person. The two lanes were also awash with blood, over which flies and insects buzzed.

A young polio-afflicted mother sat emotionless in the doorway of her tenement, cradling her child.

Bodies of all her male family members were piled high behind her. As we walked past she quietly handed over her child to one of us in kind of bizarre ritual of capitulation and hopelessness.

We lifted her up and handed both mother and child over to the local police that had by now arrived along with some volunteers, never to see them again.

But the most spine-chilling part of this grisly setting was the total and complete silence that hung over the killing zone, even though we were surrounded by hundreds of people which, doubtlessly also included the killers.

There was not a whisper from the mob, as in the light of a few hastily lit hurricane lanterns, we three walked uncomprehendingly through the bodies littering the two alleyways.

Hundreds of bloodthirsty eyes followed our every move in an encounter that, even three decades later, remains palpable and terrifying.

Entreaties to senior policemen, including the late Subhash Tandon, then Delhi’s Police Commissioner and others like Nikhil Kumar, later head of the National Security Guard and Nagaland governor, to stop the Trilokpuri massacre, came to nought.

Even army units, uncomprehendingly called in from Meerut instead of Delhi, were unable to help, as their operational deployment orders were nebulous and their jurisdiction undefined.

Two reluctantly initiated Inquiry Commissions headed by retired judges and seven investigative committees into Delhi’s Sikh pogrom, resulted in just a handful of convictions.

Merely 30, relatively insignificant people were found guilty of murder of which only around ten are presently serving out their jail terms. The remainder have either been freed, following appeals to a higher court or released on parole.

Another 200-odd persons were booked for minor offences associated with the massacres, but the majority released after being issued warnings. No senior police officer, state official or politician or anyone associated with orchestrating the pogrom has ever been indicted.

The interminable judicial proceedings against former Congress party MP’s Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler for their role in the 1984 killings, are unlikely to reach any retributive conclusion soon.

In short, there is little or no hope for justice or closure for thousands of Sikhs who lost their family members or loved ones 30 years ago and were rendered homeless.

At best, they can only hope for symbolic justice, if either or both these two former politicians are handed down convictions.

Sadly, this prompts just one conclusion: that India’s first state-sponsored killings superintended by the Congress party administration stands endorsed.