Kulvir Singh Gill

It was his mother, with her broken English, who appeared on television and spoke to the Canadian media, fighting to change the narrative during the first few weeks after the Harmandir Sahib attack. It was his mother, part of the first wave of Sikh immigrants in Calgary, Alberta, who held the megaphone as she marched with those who had never marched before.

Kulvir Singh Gill, who was then seven years old, remembers attending demonstrations all over Canada in 1984. He also remembers that day in June that started it all, when he came home from school to find his entire family sitting in the living room, crying quietly.

“It was like there had been a death in the family,” Gill says. “It was [as if] our hearts had been ripped out.”

Gill as also narrates how his 18-year-old cousin, Gurjit Singh Dhillon, was one of the unknown number of young Sikhs picked up in June 1984. “He disappeared.. and I think it was a couple of years later that we learnt, someone who was locked up with him, saw him, and he’s the one who came back and told our family that he is no longer alive.”