Akali procession broken up at Delhi, 12 June 1960

Who: Akali volunteers and Delhi Sikhs, the Delhi police and administration, the Delhi Akali Dal, and Master Tara Singh, who proclaimed the march to Delhi before his arrest in May 1960.

What: Master Tara Singh had proclaimed a march from Amritsar on 29 May that would end in a Sikh procession in the capital on 12 June (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism). On 6 June the president of the Delhi Akali Dal said the Akalis would take out a procession in Delhi on 12 June even if the Government banned it, and that it would stay peaceful (Times of India Year Book). On 9 June the Delhi administration banned processions and sealed the border, and the Akalis announced they would defy the order (Gurmit Singh; Year Book).

The Year Book says the plan was for batches of volunteers to come out of Gurdwara Sis Ganj and court arrest. On the morning of 12 June, Gurmit Singh says, police seized the loudspeakers at a congregation at Gandhi Ground near the gurdwara. Thousands then gathered outside Gurdwara Sis Ganj and a jatha of eleven set off towards the Town Hall, where police charged them with lathis and used tear gas. The Year Book says the day was marked by much violence at the gurdwara and the Town Hall.

The casualty figures differ:

• Official account, as Gurmit Singh gives it: one dead, about 100 injured among the crowd, and 75 police injured.
• Times of India Year Book: one dead, more than 150 injured including 75 police, and about 1,000 taken into custody.
• Akali account, as Gurmit Singh gives it: seven dead, almost 1,000 injured and more than 1,000 arrested. Sangat Singh also says "some sources" give seven deaths and 1,000 injured, and about 2,000 Akalis arrested.

Gurmit Singh adds that the authorities refused to hand over the body of the man who died or to give his name. He calls talk of truckloads of Sikh bodies thrown into the Jumna a rumour, though Sant Fateh Singh repeated it to Prime Minister Shastri in 1965 as what he had been told. Sangat Singh also reports a list of 258 missing persons and a claim that the police secretly burned a truckload of bodies.

Where: Delhi: Gandhi Ground, Gurdwara Sis Ganj and the Town Hall.

Why it mattered: Delhi became a second front of the morcha, with eleven Akalis courting arrest daily under Rachhpal Singh, president of the Delhi Akali Dal (Sangat Singh). Gurmit Singh says even Sikhs aligned with the Congress, including the Panth Sewak Dal that Giani Kartar Singh had formed against Master Tara Singh, condemned the police violence. By 14 June the Year Book counted 2,457 arrested in the whole agitation.