On 13 April 1919,
one of the saddest events in the Indian history took place – the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre. On April
13, the day of the Baisakhi festival, people had gathered in an open
space known as the Jallianwalla Bagh, to participate in the annual
celebrations. Coming from outside the city, they may have been unaware
of the imposition of martial law in the city. Colonel Reginald Dyer of
the British India Army was informed about the
gathering and he went there with fifty soldiers. The Jallianwala Bagh
was surrounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had few narrow
entrances. Most of them were kept permanently locked. The main entrance
was relatively wide, but was guarded heavily by the troops backed by the
armoured vehicles. Dyer, without warning the crowd to disperse, blocked
the main exits and ordered his troops to begin shooting towards the
densest sections of the crowd. The firing continued for approximately
ten minutes. Cease-fire was ordered only when ammunition supplies were
almost exhausted, after approximately 1,650 rounds were spent. Many
people died in stampedes at the narrow gates or by jumping into the
solitary well on the compound to escape the shooting. The wounded could
not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew was declared, and
many more died during the night. A memorial was built for the innocent
souls who departed on the unfortunate day and the memorial was
inaugurated in 1961. The Jallianwalla Bagh site is now a national
monument.
