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At Gopalpur
Haradum ? MAJUMDAR - local Hindu, says aged about 78,distinguished
with glasses, had shown us around the old mandir in the nearby
small town destroyed after demolition of Babri Masjid; interviewed
in a sprwaling, dilapidated former zamindar's house; two cousins'
families live there modestly (one of younger men studying
engineering in Paris and just about to bring over his wife and
baby daughter, Puja); Muslim family have moved into other part of
house, holding false papers; puja platfiorm destroyed years ago,
but idol of Saraswati
present in Cal on Direct Action Day
- BENGALI, 20/4/97
2IE > present at mtg; saw Shurwardy on stage and beside hinm
was Sheikh Mujib ur Rehman, a student then; that direct
action day started all thr riots - the next day riots
began in Cal ...
23C > S'dy didn't saying anything diretcly like go and attack
Hs as far as I remember; but this was something they
were discussing in the mosques ... and they brought in
trucks full of musclemen in Bihar ... and the next day
we sam them roaming round Cal streets with daggers in
their hands ... (and anecdote to S'dy in police HQs);
the first day and second day the Ms went on rampaging,
killing, looting, and on the second day the Hs also
started resisting it and joined in
267 > they were common H people; they had to resist to save
their own lives cos the govt was ML and wasn't doing
anything ... then afterwards Gandhi came and the mil
were deployed, and things were controlled
283 > I didn't do anything during the riots, but afterwards when
Hs from E Bengal started to arrive in Cal, there was an
assn of people from N'li in Cal, and they asked me to
rescue these people from Sealdah stn and send them to
relief centres
298 > when I used to go to resce these people, in the stn wd be
Pesh Pubnj and Bih goondas, they wd try to identify Hs
coming from E Bengal and try to stab them or kill them,
so to resist that I had to organsie a gp of goondas
myself whenver I organised such an operation
312 > [refugees] they had nothing nut the clothes they had
on, no food, ... people were flocking in and they had
nothing but the clothes they were wearing; they were out
of their minds, they couldn't say anything, couldn't
describe anything, they were awestruck, they had lost so
many people and all their life's belongings
322 > the people wee all taken to diff't refugee camps estd
by the govt ... many of them stayed in these camps for
4,5,6, years
344 > riot began v early in morning of 16 August from Sealdah
station, the procession began there, and from there via
Harrison Rd, Lowr Circ Rd, Mirzapur Rd; on the way they
were stabbing Hs and looting things and everything and
I was in Bow Bazaar, living there, and we sudd saw this
proc's coming, and we saw people trying to run for their
lives, and you cd hear nothing by Allah Akbar and Bande
Mataram |
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