Hashimpura 22 May: The Forgotten Story of India’s Biggest Custodial Killing

Searching for survivors among the blood-soaked bodies strewn around the canal and between the ravines near Makanpur village, on the Delhi Ghaziabad border, on the night of 22 May 1987, with just a dim torchlight the memories are still fresh in Vibhuti Narain Rai s mind. On that fateful night, when Rai first heard about the killing, he could not believe the news was true until he, along with the district magistrate and a few other officials, went to Hindon canal. He quickly realized that all of them had become witnesses to secular India s most shameful and horrendous incident personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) had rounded up dozens of Muslims from riot-torn Meerut and had killed them in cold blood in Rai s area of jurisdiction. Offering a blow-by-blow account of the massacre and its aftermath, Hashimpura is a screaming narrative of the barbaric use of state force and the spineless politics in post-Independent India.