Despite having a large presence of Army Units in Delhi (including the Red Fort ) , Army was not called out for 3 days.Units which came from Meerut were sent back.
Compare this with the terrorist attack on Parliament in 2001, Special Forces of the Indian Army reached the Parliament House ,in helicopters , in less than 10 minutes.
Later , top honest Police Officers observed that during the riots frantic calls were received by the Police Control Room ( PCR Tel No 100 ). These were referred to concerned Thanas . What happened in the Thanas - all records were missing.
=------------
Bravery of Fellow Stephanian
Going
back to the terrible Anti Sikh riots of 1984 which as an Indian have
shamed me among others. I wish to recall the heroism of my friend and
college mate who played a very daring and brave role in saving the
victims.
Virendra
Saksena IRS ( now a very senior officer )- in St. Stephen's College
from 1974-1977 ( R/o Allnutt South Extension , my neighbour ) was in
Delhi at that time.
Virendra risked his life in saving innocent lives .
Some
how I feel that his bravery ,patriotism and fight against injustice may
end up unrecognized ( I think very few out side his close friends are
aware of it ).
So , I
have taken the liberty of putting it in Stephanian domain. ---- On our
request Virendra Saksena's writes ---Gosh I am a little surprised that
the past has been recalled by my dear friends Ashwini and Kishore.
Back
in October 1984 many of us who were in ISH were preparing for the Civil
Services examination. The Khalsa College stood across the road and some
of us happened to know the son of the then Principal of the Khalsa
College. At that point of time when Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated, the
Principal of Khalsa College was a part of the Indian delegation to
UN/USA, to convince the international community that there was no
discrimination against Sikhs in India. In the wake of the assassination
and the ensuing violence a lot of Sikh families had taken refuge in the
staff quarters of the Khalsa College. The Indian students of ISH felt
that they could not be a silent spectator to the violence that was
taking place in Delhi. It was generally felt that it was a watershed
moment that beckoned each one of us to take a stand. This included
around 20 of us – Rajiv Bora, Pratap Paikray, and Anil Saxena are some
of the names I recall. So even though the Civil Services Exam was to
start in a weeks time, we decided to spend the nights in the campus of
the Khalsa College to express our solidarity with the Sikh families and
to help them in whatever way possible if a mob tried to harm them.
Initially there was some suspicion about our bonafides as some of the
families who had sought refuge in the college were worried that we could
be Trojans for the rioters. To convince them few of us decided to offer
one of us as a hostage at all points of time, well inside the place,
while the rest stood guard outside. The Principal’s family was deeply
embarrassed about this but we assured them that we appreciated the
concerns of the group present in the college. The 2-3 nights spent in
the college were very scary. Across the ganda nala we could see fires
burning in the Kingsway Camp settlements accompanied by frenzied yells
and we expected a mob to show up any moment at the gates of the college.
Fortunately, nothing happened. At last the army stepped in and when we
saw the soldiers marching on the road between ISH and Khalsa College, we
all breathed a sigh of relief.
No comments:
Post a Comment