1984 Anti-Sikh Riots

The 1984 anti-Sikhs riots or the 1984 Sikh Massacre were a series of directed against Sikhs in India by anti-Sikh mobs, in response to the assassination of the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31,1984

Anti-Sikh riots erupted on 1 November 1984, and continued in some areas for days, killing more than 3,000 Sikhs. Sultanpuri, Mangolpuri, Trilokpuri, and other Trans-Yamuna areas of Delhi were the worst affected. Mobs carried iron rods, knives, clubs, and combustible material, including kerosene. The mobs swarmed into Sikh neighbourhoods, arbitrarily killing any Sikh men or women they could find. Their shops and houses were ransacked and burned. In other incidents, armed mobs stopped buses and trains, in and around Delhi, pulling out Sikh passengers to be lynched or doused with kerosene and burnt alive. Others were dragged out from their homes and hacked to death with bladed weapons.

There were more than 8,000deaths, including 3,000 in Delhi.

Timeline of events

October 31,1984

• 09:20: Indira Gandhi is shot by two of her Sikh security guards at her residence, No. 1 Safdarjung Road, and rushed to All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS).
• 10:50: Indira Gandhi dies.
• 11:00: All India Radio(AIR) listeners learn that the two security guards who shot Indira Gandhi were Sikhs.
• 16:00: Rajiv Gandhi returns from West Bengal and reaches AIIMS. Stray incidents of attacks in and around that area.
• 17:30: The motorcade of President Zail Singh who is returning from a foreign visit, is stoned as it approaches AIIMS.

evening and night of Oct 31,1984

• Organized and well equipped gangs of ruffians set out in different directions from AIIMS.
• The violence, including violence towards Sikhs and destruction of Sikh properties, spreads.
• Rajiv Gandhi is sworn in as the Prime Minister.
• Senior advocate and BJP leader Ram Jethmalani meets Home Minister P V Narasimha Rao and urges him to take immediate steps to protect Sikhs from further attacks.
• Delhi's Lt. Governor,P G Gavai and Police Commissioner S C Tandon visits some of the affected areas

Nov 01,1984

• The first killing of a Sikh occurs in East Delhi 
• 09:00: Armed mobs take over the streets of Delhi and launch a massacre.

Among the first targets were Gurdwaras, the holy temples of Sikhs

The worst affected areas are low income colonies like Trilokpuri,Shahdara, Geeta Colony, Mongolpuri, Sultanpuri and Palam Colony. The few areas where the local police stations take prompt measures against mobs see hardly any killings or major violence -Farsh Bazar and Karol Bagh are two such examples

Nov 02,1984

Curfew is announced throughout Delhi, but is not enforced. The Army deployed throughout Delhi too but ineffective because the police did not co-operate with soldiers (who are not allowed to open fire without the consent of senior police officers and executive magistrates).

Mobs continue to rampage

Nov 03,1984
Violence continues. By late evening, the national Army and local police units work together to subdue the violence. After law enforcement intervention, violence is comparatively mild and sporadic.In Delhi the dead bodies of the victims of riots were taken to All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi and Civil Hospital Mortuary Tis hazari, Delhi


From 31 October 1984 to 10 November 1984, human rights groups People's Union for Democratic Rights and the People's Union for Civil Liberties(PUCL)conducted an inquiry into the riots by interviewing victims, police officers, neighbours of the victims, army personnel and political leaders. In their joint report, entitled Who Are The Guilty?, they concluded:

The attacks on members of the Sikh Community in Delhi and its suburbs during the period, far from being a spontaneous expression of "madness" and of popular "grief and anger" at Mrs. Gandhi's assassination as made out to be by the authorities, were the outcome of a well organised plan marked by acts of both deliberate commissions and omissions by important politicians of the Congress (I) at the top and by authorities in the administration.

The Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) is of the opinion that the acts of violence were organized with the support from the then Delhi police officials and the central government headed by Indira Gandhi's son Rajiv Gandhi who was sworn in as Prime Minister after his mother's death and, when asked about the riots, Rajiv Gandhi said "when a big tree falls, the earth shakes"