The Moradabad Eidgah Massacre: The Remembering the 1980 Tragedy
The hidden history of Moradabad: Police firing on Eid worshippers
This is an incident that happened exactly 44 years ago from today. On August 13, 1980, after observing 30 days of fasting, millions of Muslims, dressed in new clothes and perfumed with the scent of attar, gathered at the Eidgah in Moradabad to offer Eid prayers, filled with joy and jubilation as always. Two days later, August 15, was approaching, so the celebrations were doubled.
On that day, everything was normal at Moradabad’s Eidgah. The Eid prayer was completed, and Imam-e-Shahr Hakim Syed Masoom Ali Azad was delivering the sermon when suddenly PAC (Provincial Armed Constabulary) started surrounding the Eidgah filled with millions of worshippers.
No one understood why this was happening or the reason behind the PAC surrounding the Eidgah. However, the PAC soldiers surrounded the Moradabad Eidgah from all sides.
Ignoring the situation, the worshippers continued to listen to the sermon after the Eid prayer when suddenly pigs entered the Eidgah despite the PAC’s deployment at the gate and around the Eidgah.
How did this happen? This led to minor disputes, and worshippers praying in the back rows at the gate started questioning the PAC about how pigs managed to enter among the worshippers despite the presence of the police force from the Eidgah to its gate.
While some people in the back rows were in conversation with the PAC, the armed PAC suddenly stepped back and directly turned their guns towards the Eidgah, starting to fire, repeating the Jallianwala incident. One after another, the bodies of worshippers began falling in the Eidgah.
According to Imam-e-Shahr Hakim Syed Masoom Ali Azad, injured, alive, and dead bodies were loaded into PAC trucks and disappeared. Many were still breathing, and later, a truckload of blood-stained shoes and slippers was collected from the Eidgah.
Comparing this to the Jallianwala Bagh incident, where hundreds of people gathered on Baisakhi day and were fired upon by the army under General Dyer, resulting in the deaths of approximately 400 people.
The similarities do not end here. In both cases, the victims had only one exit door, and people inside were shot one by one.
After the firing on worshippers offering Eid prayers in the Eidgah, no one knows how many people were killed. However, it is known that the Moradabad incident was not a Hindu-Muslim riot but a well-planned massacre of Muslims by the police force, which was attempted to be covered under the topic of Hindu-Muslim riots.
At that time, MP Syed Shahabuddin referred to Moradabad as the Jallianwala Bagh of independent India. The fact is that the past of secular Congress is the bloodiest, and it is the Congress governments that have used state machinery the most to massacre Muslims.
The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi also endorsed the police force by encouraging them and dismissing the allegations, stating, “The Commissioner and Inspector General of Police saw no evidence to support the charge that the police were generally out of control.”
Ignoring the horrific police excesses in Moradabad in 1980, Indira Gandhi declared it a conspiracy to weaken the government.
Later, defending the UP PAC, notorious for being anti-Muslim during the 1983 Meerut riots, Indira Gandhi expressed regret over the detailed allegations against it.
Note that out of the 29 riots that had occurred in Uttar Pradesh until then, the UP PAC was accused of massacring Muslims in 13 of them.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the then Chief Minister VP Singh’s government and Congress held Muslims responsible for the riot instead of the police, alleging that Muslims fired at the PAC from inside the Eidgah.
For this, the biased media was used, particularly “The Times of India,” which reported that Muslims were armed and attacked the PAC forcefully.
Who goes to offer Eid prayers with weapons? To date, I have never seen a Muslim coming with weapons to Eid, Bakra Eid, or Friday prayers. If someone did, the Muslims present there would teach them a lesson.
Later, this was turned from a PAC-Muslim conflict to a Hindu-Muslim riot, and Moradabad was bathed in the blood of Muslims for several days. Around 400 people were killed.
In reality, VP Singh misled Indira Gandhi by taking help from “The Times of India,” and to prevent Indira Gandhi from knowing the truth, VP Singh quickly contacted a special journalist from “The Times of India” and got a false story published.
That’s why I consider Vishwanath Pratap Singh the biggest villain in Indian politics.
After that, the leftist Romila Thapar’s brother Romesh Thapar created a new theory, claiming that Muslims received financial assistance from Saudi Arabia to spread instability in India, leading to several days of bloody clashes in Moradabad.
At that time, former bureaucrat and MP Syed Shahabuddin was the only leader who stated that the police openly fired on Muslims, while no Muslim had any weapon during the prayer.
Eyewitness journalist Hisam-ul-Islam Siddiqui stated that the worshippers’ only complaint to the PAC was about the pigs entering the Eidgah, and then the PAC surrounded the entire Eidgah and fired on the unarmed worshippers, piling up bodies.
After the police firing in the Eidgah, Chief Minister VP Singh sent two cabinet ministers, Abdur Rahman Nashtar and Jagdish Prasad, to the scene that night.
After assessing the situation, both ministers returned to Lucknow, and the next day VP Singh had them attend his press conference. According to journalist Hisam-ul-Islam Siddiqui, who was covering the press conference, VP Singh fabricated a new theory of internal Muslim conflict in the Eidgah to save his government and the police, when cabinet minister Abdur Rahman Nashtar revealed in the press conference that the situation escalated due to PAC firing.
Cabinet Minister Abdul Rahman Nashtar admitted in the press conference that the police killed people over a minor dispute, comparing it to Jallianwala Bagh in independent India. Nashtar further stated that there was no responsible officer to make decisions on the spot and blamed the PAC soldiers.
VP Singh was furious at Nashtar’s bitter truth and ended the press conference. Shortly after, VP Singh dismissed both ministers, Abdur Rahman Nashtar and Jagdish Prasad, from the Uttar Pradesh government.
That night, Indira Gandhi spoke to Nashtar over the phone, and when she learned the truth, she called Nashtar to Delhi.
VP Singh was hiding the truth, fabricating a false story with the help of “The Times of India,” but his two ministers exposed the reality of the police firing.
At that time, “The Times of India” had significant influence, and Indira Gandhi also took note of the newspaper. Therefore, VP Singh sent the famous Lucknow journalist Vikram Rao to Moradabad by helicopter.
Rao returned and published a new story, writing that Saudi Arabia’s petro dollars were a major reason behind the riots. He claimed that the financial assistance from Saudi Arabia reached some Muslims in Moradabad, which led to such large-scale violence.
Indira Gandhi also read this story, and VP Singh’s chair was saved for a few days.
Meanwhile, after the police firing, Hindu-Muslim riots started in Moradabad. These riots diverted attention from the police firing in the Eidgah.
Later, Indira Gandhi sent Union Minister P. Shiv Shankar and C.K. Jaffer Sharif to Moradabad. After that, Indira Gandhi herself went to Moradabad, but by the time she learned the whole truth, it was too late.
This most horrific police firing incident in independent India was buried, executed on the lines of Jallianwala Bagh. Then, under a well-thought-out strategy, the investigation of the Moradabad riots was handed over to Allahabad High Court Judge MP Saxena.
Justice Saxena was in charge of the Congress’s ‘cold storage,’ used to cover up and bury cases, and he did the same with this horrific massacre.
The Yogi government presented the investigation report in the assembly after 40 years, giving a clean chit to everyone.
Congress governments in India have spilled more Muslim blood than anyone else, without any investigation or compensation. It is still unknown who was the General Dyer of the Moradabad Eidgah massacre.
However, Sikh victims of 1984 and Kashmiri Pandits still receive compensation, allowances, and quotas.
