India’s Forgotten Massacre in Nellie
On February 18, 1983, in the genocidal massacre organised in Nellie just 40 kms from Guwahati, at least 2,191 Muslim settlers of Bengali origin were slaughtered, leaving 370 children orphaned and their homes in 16 villages destroyed.
It is instructive that it took an unconscionable 42 years for the report of the judicial commission appointed to investigate this massacre to finally be tabled in the Assam state assembly. This protracted delay is not random: it is integral to a conscious state project to erase memories and deny accountability for the pitiless crimes of the mass slaughter of 1983.
When news reached me of the belated tabling of the judicial commission report in the state assembly of one of free India’s most brutal but forgotten massacres, it brought back memories of my travel to Nellie on the 25th anniversary of the massacre in 2008. I searched for the notes I had taken of what the survivors had told me then. Watch the full video to know more.
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