61% Hindus, 36% Muslims
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh: BirBahadurSingh, Congress Party, September 1985–June 1988
The city of Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) and the nearby areas of Moradnagar and Maliana were again the scene of ghastly violence. After twenty-five years, the memory of these horrors is still extremely vivid.
Meerut.
On 14 February 1986, Muslims hoisted black flags in the city to protest against the opening of the lock that sealed the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh). They set fire to Hindu shops, leading to a small-scale riot. On 30 March 1987, large numbers of Meerut’s Muslims participated in a rally held by the Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) in Delhi, where inflammatory speeches were delivered by the Shahi Imam Syed Abdullah Bukhari On April 14, a riot erupted during the Muslim festival of Shab-e-barat (the night of freedom), claiming ten lives. On May 16, the murder of a Hindu during a banal land dispute provided the spark for more extensive rioting. Violence flared up on May 18 in the Muslim-majority neighborhood of Hashimpura when a stand belonging to a Muslim was set on fire. Muslims attacked a Hindu shop in retaliation and stabbed its owner to death. The police and the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) subsequently surrounded the area to arrest people. It was the Ramzan (Ramadan) period and Muslims were celebrating Iftar. Following appeals broadcast from the mosque’s loudspeaker, they pelted stones at the police. The violent and indiscriminate arrests that followed enraged the Muslim community, which started attacking Hindus. In the factories of Pillokhdi, ten to twelve persons (Hindus and Muslims) were burned alive. On May 19, a curfew was imposed. Hindu activists, helped by the PAC, looted and burned parts of the city. Many Muslims from poor backgrounds were burned alive, particularly in the area of Shastri Nagar where 33 persons (or more than 100 according to the residents) were killed.
Moradnagar.
On May 22, around a hundred Muslims who had been arrested in the Hashimpura locality were taken in trucks to the Ganga canal in the Moradnagar area. They were shot one by one by the PAC. Although the police denied the incident, many bodies were seen floating in the canal. It is alleged by some survivors that more than 100 persons were killed.
Maliana.
While Meerut city was returning to normalcy, another massive killing occurred in the village of Maliana, six kilometres from Meerut, on May 23. The PAC arrived in Maliana (where some Muslims, initially taken prisoner in Hashimpura, were alleged to have taken refuge) and started shooting into Muslim homes. The Hindu residents of the village, particularly Dalits, took part in the looting and burning. Many Muslims were burned alive in their houses.
The death toll and the savagery of these events left their mark on post-Independence India. The Gian Prakash Commission of Inquiry report (quoted in Engineer 1988b) established that 117 people had been killed in Meerut. Engineer also reported 68 deaths in the nearby village of Maliana and 40 in the Moradnagar area, bringing the total death toll of the events to 225. But the actual figure might be much higher, probably around 400, including around 180 deaths in Maliana and around 100 in Moradnagar. Some media reports consider that the death toll might have reached well above the four-figure mark.
**(The Indian Express 27/05/1987); **(India Today 15/06/1987); **(Secular Democracy 07/1987); **(Secular Democracy 07/1987); ***(Secular Democracy 12/1987); ***(Engineer 1987b); ***(Engineer 1988b)