Hindu-Sikh clashes in Patiala

Who: Sikh and Hindu crowds in Patiala, among them Sikh youths and the Hindu Suraksha Samiti, the Hindu protection squads that Gurmit Singh says young Hindus formed in answer to the Sikh students' federation; and the police.

What: Gurmit Singh writes that tension had been high since 26 April 1983, when the Samiti took out a procession whose members waved tridents. From 1 to 5 May the procession carrying the ashes of those killed at Rasta Roko passed through Patiala on its way to Kiratpur Sahib. On the eve of the martyrdom day of Guru Tegh Bahadur, a Hindu shopkeeper of Adalat Bazar, Shambu Parshad, cut the wires of loudspeakers broadcasting Gurbani. Sikh youths then set a Hindu's shop on fire. Mobs of both communities looted and burned about two dozen shops and some vehicles, and the Hindu Suraksha Samiti organised the Hindu mobs, according to Gurmit Singh. The city was put under curfew, with orders to shoot at sight anyone setting fires.

The Samiti called a strike across Punjab on 3 May, and trouble broke out again; the police fired in the air to disperse the crowds. On 5 May Hindu mobs stoned the police, and a police Sub-Inspector opened fire and killed Ashok Kumar, son of Vidya Sagar, president of the Janata Party's district unit. A police search recovered a bottle of acid, 40 litres of kerosene and a large quantity of bricks. After Ashok Kumar's cremation, Hindu mobs set property on fire. Gurmit Singh gives no other toll.

Where: Patiala, in and around Adalat Bazar.

Why it mattered: Gurmit Singh presents Patiala as one of the places where Hindu-Sikh tension broke out after the Rasta Roko procession, a sign that the Akali agitation was now being answered by organised groups on the Hindu side. The Samiti later called the Punjab, Haryana and Himachal bandh of 14 February 1984, in which, the Home Minister told Parliament, 11 lives were lost.