The Jallianwala Bagh massacre is one of the darkest chapters of India’s freedom struggle against the British occupation.
On 100 years of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, tributes and political reactions have been pouring in from around the world.President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday paid tributes to the martyrs.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also arrived at the memorial in the national capital and paid floral tributes to the martyrs along with Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh demanded “an unequivocal official apology from Britain” for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.The tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh of 1919 is a shameful scar on British Indian history.
The 1919 Amritsar massacre, known alternatively as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre after the Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, was ordered by General R.E.H. Dyer.
On Sunday April 13, 1919, which happened to be ‘Baisakhi’, one of Punjab’s largest religious festivals, fifty British Indian Army soldiers, commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, began shooting at an unarmed gathering of men, women, and children without warning.
The firing ended only when the troops ran out of ammunition; most of the 1,650 rounds met their target, judging from the official tally of 379 dead and some 1,200 wounded.
The number of deaths caused by the shooting is disputed. While the official figure given by the British inquiry into the massacre is 379 deaths, the method used by the inquiry has been subject to criticism.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday told parliament that Britain “deeply regretted what happened and the suffering caused.” But she too didn’t say sorry.
