We Share Their Agony Sikh Women Victims of Nov. 1984

Gurai Kaur, a 45 year old woman from block 32, Trilokpuri, told a typical story. Her husband and three sons were brutally murdered in front of her. Her husband used to run a small shop in the locality. Her eldest son, Bhajan Singh, worked in the railway Station, the second in a radio repair shop and the third as a scooter driver. She says: “On the morning of November 1, when Indira Mata’s body was brought to Tin Murti, everyone was Watching television. Since 8 Am., they were showing the homage being paid to her dead body. At about noon, my children said: ‘Mother, please make some food. We are hungry.’ I had not cooked that day and I told them ‘Son, everyone is mourning. She was our mother, too. She helped us to settle here. So I don’t feel like lighting the fire today.’ Soon after this, the attack started. Three of the men ran out and were set on fire. My youngest son stayed in the house with me. He shaved off his beard and cut his hair, but they came into the house. Those young boys, 14 and 16 year olds, began to drag my son out even though he was hiding behind me. The tore my clothes and stripped me naked in front of my son. When these young boys began to rape me, my son began to cry and said: ‘Elder brothers, don’t do this. She is like your mother just as she is my mother. But they raped me right there, in front of my son, in my own house. They were young boys, maybe eight of them. When one of them raped me, I said: ‘My child, never mind, Do what you like. But remember, I have given birth to children this child came into the world by this same path.’

“After they had taken my honor, they left. I took him sit among the women but they came and dragged him away. They took him to the street corner, hit him with lathis, sprinkled kerosene over him, and burnt him alive. I tried to save him but they struck me with knives and broke my arm. At that time, I was completely naked; I had managed to get hold of an old sheet which I had wrapped around myself. If I had even one piece of clothing on my body, I would have gone and thrown myself over my son and tried to save him. I would have done anything to save at least ‘one young man of my family. Not one of the four is left.””

According to her, hardly any woman in her neighborhood was spared the humiliation she under: went. She said even nine to 10 year old girls were raped. She was an eyewitness to many such rapes. The attackers first emptied the houses of men who were burnt alive. After that, they dragged the women inside the ransacked houses and gang raped them. Not many women would openly admit this fact because, as Gurdip Kaur says: “The unmarried girls will have to stay unmarried all their lives if they admit that they have been dis-honored. No one would marry such a girl.” Therefore, most families do not openly acknowledge the fact

This led me to ask Gurdip Kaur why she had come forward to narrate her experience. I also asked whether she wanted me to publish her statement. She categorically said she wanted her Statement to be published: “Those women in whose homes there is one or more surviving men cannot make a public statement because they will be dis-honoring those men. I have no one left (meaning no male member) my daughter has also been widowed She has two children. My daughter-in-law, who was three children, has also been widowed. Another daughter-in-law was married only one and a half months ago and has also been widowed. I have nothing left. That is why I want to give my statement.”

In fact, many other families whose adult men had all been killed similarly felt that there was “no one left in the family.” At times, when people said that all their children (bachey) had been killed, they were actually referring only to their sons. | had specifically to enquire about surviving daughters, whose lives were not counted in the same way.

Indra Bai narrates: “At about 4 p.m., after they had murdered all the Sikh men they could get hold of in our block, they asked the women to come out of the houses. They said ‘Now your men are dead. Come out and sit together or else we will kill you too.’

“We women all huddled together and they offered us some water. As we were drinking water, they began dragging off whichever girl they liked. Each girl was taken away by a gang of 10 or 12 boys, many of them in their teens. They would take her to the nearby masjid, gang rape her, and send her back after a few hours. Some never returned. Those who re turned were in a pitiable condition and without a stitch of clothing. One young girl said 15 men had climbed ‘on her.” Gurdip Kaur and many other women from Trilokpuri whom I interviewed at Balasaheb gurudwara and at Farash Bazar camp also had been abducted by ganisters and taken to Ghilla village which is dominated by guijars, some of whom are alleged to have led the attacking gangs. On November 3, the military brought some of these women back from Chilla. But many of them were untraceable at the time | interviewed these families. They were very worried that these women had either been murdered or were still being held captive.

Rajjo Bai, another old woman from the same neighborhood, who had sought shelter in Balasaheb gurudwar in Ashram, had a similar tale to tell. Two of her sons were killed in her presence. One who was hiding in a hut is still missing. All three sons were rickshaw pullers. She got separated from her two daughters-in-law who were probably abducted. The daughters-in-law were found much later at the Farash Bazar camp but Rajjo’s 24 year old daughter, who had had to be left behind in the house because she was disabled, could not be traced.

Nanki Bai, also from Trilokpuri, was distraught when she asked us to look for her daughter, Koshala Bai, who had been snatched away from her. She says: “All night, the attacks continued. My husband was hiding in a trunk. They dragged him out and cut him to pieces. Another 16 year old boy was killed in front of my eyes. He was carrying a small child in his arms. They killed the child too.

We women were forced to come out of our houses and sit in a group outside. I was trying to hide my daughter. I put a child in her lap and disheveled her hair so that she would look older. But finally one of our own neighbors pointed her out to these men. They began to drag away. We tried to save her. I pleaded with them. My son came in the way and they hit him with a sword. He lost his finger. I could not even look at his hand. I just wrapped it in my veil.

“They took Koshala to the masjid. | don’t know what happened to her. At about 4 Am., when we were driven cut of the colony, she called out to me from the roof of the masjid. She was screaming to me: ‘Mummy, mujhe le chal, mujhe le chal, Mummy.’ (Take me with you). But how could Mummy take her? They beat her because she’ called to me. | don’t know where she is now.”

Later, I met Koshala in the Farash Bazar camp and told her that her mother was in Balasaheb gurudwara. She confirmed her mother’s account and added that her father’s eyes had been gouged out before he was killed. But she did not say that she had been raped. She merely said: “They slapped me and beat me and struck me with a knife. They tore up my clothes.

The rapists made no distinction are: tween old and young women. In Nand Nagri, 80 year old women informed a social worker that she had been raped. In Trilokpuri, several cases were reported of old women who were gang raped in front of their family members. As in all such situations, the major purpose of these tapes seems to have been to inflict humiliation and to destroy the victim’s morale even more completely.

Manchi Devi, about 55, says she was gang raped. Four men of her family, including her son-in-law and her nephew, were murdered, “When I tried to intervene to save children, several of those men grabbed me. Some tore my clothes, some climbed ‘on top of me. What can I ‘tell you, sister? Some raped me, some bit me all ‘over my body, and some tore off my clothes. All this happened around 11 p.m. in my own house. I don’t know how many men there were. The whole house was full of them. About a dozen raped me. After that, they caught hold of some young girls outside. My old husband and one nine year old son are the only ones left in my family. Whom shall | depend on in my old age? What can this nine year old do?”

Most of these rapes took place while the bodies of the husbands, sons or brothers of these women were still smoldering in their presence, and their homes had thus been converted into cremation grounds. Baby Bai, a young bride, aged around 20, was also gang raped. She was married barely a year ago. Her husband was a rickshaw puller, and sometimes worked as a scooter driver.

She says: “There were six members in our family. The three men, my husband and my two brothers-in-law, were murdered. Now only three women are left. Our house was attacked at about 4 p.m. and the fighting continued until next morning, my husband was first beaten and then burnt to death. I was sitting and crying when a big group of men came and dragged me away. They took me to the nearby huts in front of block 32, and raped me. They tore off all my clothes. They bit and scratched me. They took me at 10 p.m. and released me about 3 a.m. When I came back, I was absolutely naked, just as one is when one comes out of the mother’s womb.

Pyari Bai, aged about 70, has also lost all the male members of her family— three sons, a grandson, two sons-in-law and two nephews. Most of the men in her family used to weave string beds for a living and one~ was a rickshaw puller. Her daughter-in-law, who is several months’ pregnant, was dragged inside the house and raped. Pyari Bai too says that not even old women or little girls were spared.

Even though it was widely known that these attacks had been going on unabated since November 1, the government neither provided the victims with any physical protection nor made any arrangements for them to be evacuated until much after the worst was over.

Sikh Women Demand Justice for their Innocent Victimized Sisters The space for this message excerpted from Manushi was donated by Sikh Women’s International Organization 230 Central Park South New York, N.Y. 10019

According to her, hardly any woman in her neighborhood was spared the humiliation she underwent. She said even nine to 10 year old girls were raped. She was an eyewitness to many such rapes. The at-trackers first emptied the houses of men who were burnt alive.

Article extracted from this publication >> November 11, 1988

We Share Their Agony Sikh Women Victims of Nov. 1984