Ludhiana (February 28, 2011): The Sikh Siyasat Network (SSN) has accessed the First Information Report of the Hondh Masacre in which 32 Sikhs of a small Sikh village Hondh, situated in Rewari District of Haryana, were killed and the village was completely destroyed. As the per the documents, hereby made public by the SSN a report with the concerned police station was launched by the then Sarpanch (Village-head) of Village Chillar, who was also Sarpanch of village Hondh as both villages were administered by single Panchayat (Village Council). FIR mentions Hondh as Hojipur. Name Hojipur seems to have been derived from the fact that there was hauj (water pond) in Hondh, and that locals were used to call it so.
According to the FIR, no 91, a copy of which could be download from link provided below, which was registered at police station Jatusana in Mahendergarh district, now in Rewari, based on DDR no 5, reveals that the killers had first arrived in a truck from the side of Hali Mandi in Pataudi, Gurgaon district on the morning of November 2, at around 11am, but were “pacified” by a group of villagers of Chillar and persuaded to go back. However, they returned in the evening, accompanied by more people in two or three trucks and started the bloodbath in the `dhani’. “They said they were determined to eliminate the Sikhs in the dhani (Hojipur) because those Sikhs had killed our beloved leader Indira Gandhi,” reads the statement recorded by the complainant in the FIR.
The FIR was registered on the complaint of Dhanpat Singh, the then sarpanch of Chillar who further stated that the killers came back in the evening and started burning the dwellings of the Sikhs. Though, the locals tried to stop them but the killers carried on their arson and attack, while threatening the locals to keep out. The complaint states, “Deep Chand Nambardar, Nanak Chand, Kanhaiya Lal Panch, a resident of Nurpur came to the spot and tried to convince them (killers). But, none of them paid any heed to it and said that Sikhs are traitors and we will finish them, and if you said a word then you will also face bad consequences. They were 400-500 in number and they put houses and shed on fire and started pelting stones, due to which some people were burnt in the houses”.
The sarpanch also stated that the locals could not identify the burnt bodies, which were 20 in number. “We wanted to come to report the incident immediately but those people confined us and did not allow us to come.” He also mentions the name of Subedar Deep Chand, who accompanied the sarpanch to the police station to report the incident.
The FIR was attested and signed by head constable Ram Kumar and it was registered under sections 148/149/302/436 and 34 of IPC.
The fact that no proceedings in pursuance of information provided in the FIR were initiated during last 26 years exposes real state of things related to rule of law and respect for human rights in so-called largest democracy on earth.
FIR of the Hondh Massacre (.pdf version)