New Delhi — Three drunken men on Sunday night broke into one of the recently allotted quarters of Sikh victims of the worst holocaust in West Delhi.

Though one of the intruders, Nain Singh Tyagi, an influential man in the area was later arrested the other two having fled after an alarm was raised the widows who have been in Tilak Vihar barely for three weeks are feeling increasingly insecure.

While eyewitnesses say that three persons including Tyagi arrived on a scooter (DIQ 5339), and broke into Thakri’s flat after romping noisily up and down the staircases, the police on Wednesday said the three were merely trying to enter Tilak Vihar.

According to Mohan Singh, an eyewitness, the three men ran up and down various staircases in the building, before forcing their way into Thakri’s house while she was putting her child to sleep.

Thakri raised an alarm attracting the attention of a large number of widows attending an akhand path nearby. Two of the three intruders, reportedly armed, managed to escape while the third, Nain Singh Tyagi totally inebriated fell down the stairs injuring his face. He was caught by the widows and handed over to the police.

The widows from Trilokpuri Mangolpuri and Palam Village were initially reluctant to move into Tilak Vihar where the Delhi Administration had allotted them quarters. Several hundred other Sikh families in various camps in the city including Farash Bazar, Nanak Piao, Nanaksar besides several gurdwaras had demanded that they too be rehabilitated alongside the widows. The administration however was adamant and only recently decided to provide these quarters to the widows.

The Government had done nothing to provide basic facilities to the widows. Many quarters are without electricity and the medical facilities promised by the administration are nonexistent. There is no police post nearby to make the women feel more secure. Still shaken by the riots, many of them having to fend for themselves for the first time the widows are being harrassed by Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking (DESU) officials tying them up in a bureaucratic bind demanding all kinds of certificates and signatures on forms that are beyond their comprehension.

Article extracted from this publication >>  March 8, 1985