Duration: 00:03:12

Popri Kaur: But what they did with us was extremely brutal. What Sajjan Kumar did with us was very brutal. My husband would have stayed on safely indoors and would not have died if Sajjan Kumar had not come. Sajjan Kumar only killed him. All the persons in that mob were his men, they belonged to his village. They killed my husband. I personally saw them killing five men in their vehicle. They were slaughtered like animals and dumped. My young son Wazir also saw them. And he said, ‘Mummy, they are going to kill us similarly.’ I said, ‘no, son, they won’t kill you because your uncle is sitting here to protect you’. And our Muslim neighbour told him to get inside, away from the door. There is a general belief that Muslims are the enemies of the Sikhs. But our Muslim neighbour was not our enemy, he was our friend, he was a nice man. We had two Muslim neighbours, one inside the lane and the other on the main road. They were brothers. Both cooperated with us and helped us. Others in the neighbourhood also helped us. They never allowed anyone to enter the lane and kill anyone. That is how my children survived. But they took my husband away in a vehicle. They searched the houses for the Sikhs. And he was sitting inside. The others had scattered away to save their lives. I don’t know how and where they took him. I felt unconscious because they picked me up and forcefully threw me on the ground when I sprawled myself over him to protect him. They could have killed me also. Then what could I have done. They would have taken me along too. That is how they killed my husband.

Harpal Singh: Could you find out where he was taken, what happened to him? Popri Kaur: No. My neighbour and I went and searched for him in every single hospital, Hindu Rao, Safdarjung, AIIMS. I searched every single floor, every single ward. I thought he could be lying abandoned somewhere since the mob was breaking the limbs of all the Sikhs first. I thought may be someone could have taken him to the hospital for treatment. But I could not find him. He wasn’t there. Then I went to the Mangolepuri Police Station. They showed us photos of burnt bodies and told us to identify him. How can anyone identify a person from looking at such photos? I couldn’t find him. My neighbour and I spent three to four days in the hospitals to search for him. I was locking up my kids inside and going. I told them to stay indoors, pee and poop inside but not step out. He was nowhere to be found. I searched the refugee camps too which were set up by the Army. We made enquiries everywhere. We were so baffled. My neighbour’s daughter was 12 days old when 1984 occurred.