Tughlakabad and Nangloi killings

Who: Sikh passengers travelling to Delhi by train, and the mobs that boarded trains and waited at stations around the capital, with railway police who were meant to protect the passengers. In December 2012 the All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) and Sikhs for Justice, with the All India Defence Brotherhood (Punjab), named seven serving officers they said were killed: Lt Col A.S. Anand (74 Armoured Regiment), Major Sukhwinder Singh (150 Field Regiment), Captain I.P.S. Bindra (63 Cavalry), Captain U.P.S. Jassal (9 Assam), Captain Partap Singh (Ordnance Corps), Lieutenant S.S. Gill (89 Armoured Regiment) and Flight Lieutenant Harinder Singh. The reports available carry no official confirmation or denial of these names.

What: On 1 and 2 November 1984 trains reached Delhi carrying the bodies of Sikhs killed on the way. Prof. Madhu Dandavate told the Misra Commission that when his train reached Tughlakabad on the morning of 2 November, armed outsiders boarded and searched for Sikhs; two were killed on the platform and their bodies set alight while police made no effort to stop it. Affidavits from Nangloi describe armed mobs arriving by train at J.J. Colony, and one witness counted 32 dead Sikhs. The groups' press conference in Chandigarh on 17 December 2012 cited FIR No. 355 of 1 November 1984, lodged with the Government Railway Police, Delhi, for rioting, murder and desecration, and alleged that Railway Protection Force weapons were used. On 3 January 2013 PTI reported that the Army's Adjutant General's branch was checking the claims after the National Security Adviser's secretariat raised them with the Defence Ministry.

Where: Tughlakabad and Nangloi railway stations and the Nangloi neighbourhood, Delhi.

Why it mattered: The killings show that the violence reached passengers in transit, not only residents of the colonies. Researcher Jaskaran Kaur lists 46 unauthorised train stoppages, and a 1985 reply from the Northern Railway records no arrests by the Railway Police Force between 31 October and 4 November. The Nanavati Commission did not pursue the train incidents, noting that no one had complained about them. The Army's verification, reported 28 years after the event, is the only official step in the sources consulted, and no result has been published there.