1.
On the evening of November 2, I went to Durgapura Chowk alongwith
the Statesman reporter Joydeep Gupta. We were told that the Prime
Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, would be visiting the area. All security
arrangements had been made. Two senior officers of the Prime
Minister’s security, Mr. Hari Pillai and Mr. Ajay Aggarwal were there to
make arrangements.
2.
Before the Prime Minister could come I visited the gurdwara at
Durgapura, where some frightened refugees were crowded. They begged us to
arrange for some food for them. There were bodies of Sikhs all
around, in the area for a long distance. I was told many more had
been removed because the PW was to come, but even on the main road, under
the wreckage of a truck Joydeep Gupta and I saw a half burnt body being
eaten by a dog..
3.
Barely 50 yards from the body I met the East Delhi, DCP, Mr. Sewa
Das, who had come there in time for the PM’s scheduled visit. I asked him
what had happened in the area. His reply was that all day in the
district there had been only two deaths. He said this ata time when at
least a dozen bodies could be seen around within 100 meters radius.
4.
Mr. Sewa Dass said a bunch of Sikhs from the Gurdwara had attacked
an innocent crowd outside, killing a girl. So naturally, he said,
they hit back and one Sikh had been killed. He said Sikhs had
fortified themselves at Durgapura gurdwara which I had just visited.
5.
What Mr. Sewa Dass said was such obvious lies that I wonder why he
said it at all. But he spoke of Sikhs as the aggressors in a context when
that was visibly not the case. It indicated a communal bent of mind
so powerful as to make him blind to facts all around. Given the
attitude that this indicates, he could not have acted as an impartial
police officer.
