Harbhajan Singh

“Now its time for the cremation, you have to leave (the Railway Station).” Harbhajan Singh recounts how he ended up a hiding at the Railway Station in Delhi and became an eyewitness to thousands of injured and fleeing Sikhs. Traveling from Nangal, Punjab on October 31, Singh describes the banditry with impunity that was unleashed on Sikh travellers. When Hindu co-passengers assisted him in escaping the violence in his train, they then feared his safety as well as his presence and dropped him at the waiting room of the New Delhi Railway Station. He had to stay here for days. From this vantage point, Singh saw the brutal torture inflicted upon other Sikh travelers including children. He recounts trains full of injured people and estimates 11,000-12,000 people collected at the station. Then, abruptly, they were told it was over, they had to leave. He remembers carriages of Shaan-e-Punjab train were reserved just to take these refugee Sikhs from all over India to Punjab. While Singh is thankful that he survived, he still shudders to think of the ruthlessness in November 1984 that reminded him of the violence that accompanied the partition 1947, and is the reason for his mistrust in the government with whose blessing he believes the pogrom was executed.