Nellie horror

 

 

The date was February 18, 1983, when Nellie, a small poverty ridden village in the Morigaon district of Assam saw more than 2,500 of its people massacred by a mob of more than 3,000 people. Most of the victims were women and children. While reasons for the massacre abound, the most plausible perhaps is that fact that Nellie is inhabited by people who, it was believed, would participate in the 1983 state elections, one that was boycotted by the All Assam Students’ Union and other groups that led the six-year-long Assam Agitation against illegal Bangladeshi migrants.

“I lost four members of my family to the murderers that day. Some of the killers were even known to me. I still wonder how people can become animals sometimes,” says Haji Sirajuddin Ahmed, who still remembers that day with remorse. A case for financial relief for the victims that Ahmed has filed in court awaits a verdict. (1983)