The 1987 Lalru bus massacre was a massacre of 38 Hindu bus passengers on 6 July 1987, by the
Khalistan Commando Force
The Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) is a militant Khalistani organisation operating in the state of Punjab with prominent members based in Canada, the United Kingdom and Pakistan. Its objective is the creation of a Sikh independent state of Khali ...
militants near
Lalru, India.
The killings
The bus involved in the attack was the
Haryana Roadways bus numbered HYE 1735, traveling from Chandigarh to
Rishikesh, a Hindu holy place. On the night of 6 July 1987, it carried 76 passengers (most of whom were Hindus
), when five attackers started trailing it.
The passengers first saw the
Fiat car, in which the attackers were traveling, at a railway crossing around 20 km from Chandigarh. Around 5 km later, the car suddenly blocked the bus, and the bus driver Hari Singh (the only Sikh on the bus) thought that the car driver was drunk. Four armed men came out of the car, threatened him with a
Sten
The STEN (or Sten gun) is a family of British submachine guns chambered in 9×19mm which were used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cos ...
gun, and hijacked the bus.
The hijackers told the passengers that they were only going to loot them, and started driving along the
Grand Trunk Road
The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath, Sarak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sarak, and Long Walk) is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads. For at least 2,500 years it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. ...
. The Fiat car followed the bus. They drove the bus for around 8 km, while the passengers handed over their jewellery and cash. Around 9:30 pm, just before the Lalru police station near the Punjab-Haryana border, they drove the bus off the main road onto a
link road. They then started taunting the passengers, saying "Where is your Riberio now?", referring to the police officer
Julio Ribeiro who led the police operations against the
insurgents in Punjab. They accused the passengers of laughing at the killings of the Sikh youth, and asked them to chant the Sikh phrase ''Sat Naam Wahe Guru'' ("Truth is the name of God").
They shouted "Make sure all Hindus are dead, you will see more blood if more Sikhs are killed!", referring to the anti-insurgent operations in Punjab.
The hijackers stopped the bus between Jamalpur and Hasanpur villages, ordered the remaining passengers to huddle in the middle of the bus, and started shooting from both ends.
The shooting lasted for about 5 minutes, and resulted in the death of 38 people, including 5 women and 4 children. Savitri Devi, a 28-year old woman who was killed in the attack, saved her husband and their 5-month old daughter by shielding them from the bullets.
A woman named Kalawati, jumped off the bus holding her three young children, and survived.
32 people were injured in the attack.
One of the attackers, a
clean-shaven
Shaving is the removal of hair, by using a razor or any other kind of bladed implement, to slice it down—to the level of the skin or otherwise. Shaving is most commonly practiced by men to remove their facial hair and by women to remove the ...
man wearing a
safari suit was killed accidentally during the firing: he was later identified as Gurmit Singh alias Tony. The attackers took his body to the Fiat car, drove along the
Ghaggar River
The Ghaggar-Hakra River is an intermittent river in India and Pakistan that flows only during the monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar in India, before the Ottu barrage, and as the Hakra in Pakistan, downstream of the barrage, ending ...
, and attempted to set the car to fire with Gurmit Singh's body inside. When it began raining, they gave up their attempt to burn the car, and escaped in a truck parked nearby.
The attackers had spared the Sikh driver Hari Singh, who reached the Lalru police station and informed the police about the attack.
A van driver passing through the area also heard the cries of the survivors and called the
Chandigarh Police
The Chandigarh Police is the law enforcement agency for the Union Territory of Chandigarh in India. Chandigarh Police has its headquarters in sector 9 D, Chandigarh. The head of the state police is the Director General of Police of Chandigarh. ...
.
The police arrived at the site an hour after the attackers had escaped. In the bus, the police found a note from the
Khalistan Commando Force
The Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) is a militant Khalistani organisation operating in the state of Punjab with prominent members based in Canada, the United Kingdom and Pakistan. Its objective is the creation of a Sikh independent state of Khali ...
, stating that "the flower of Sikh youth was being killed in Punjab", and in retaliation, a hundred Hindus would be killed for every Sikh killed.
The note accused the
Government of India
The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...
of killing the Sikhs, and Hindus of not raising their voice against these killings.
Possible connection to the Fatehabad killings
The
Punjab Police assumed that the killers had escaped towards Chandigarh, and imposed a curfew in
Mohali on its outskirts, to find them.
On the next day, the
Fatehabad bus killings occurred in the neighbouring
Haryana
Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land a ...
.
Like in the Lalru killings, the attackers were five men in their early-to-mid 20s, and most of them were
clean-shaven
Shaving is the removal of hair, by using a razor or any other kind of bladed implement, to slice it down—to the level of the skin or otherwise. Shaving is most commonly practiced by men to remove their facial hair and by women to remove the ...
. In both incidents, the attackers used another vehicle to block and stop the bus: this tactic had not been used in the earlier similar killings in the Punjab-Haryana area. In both cases, the killers looted the passengers, and escaped in a truck. According to the police, in both the incidents, the attackers used Chinese automatic rifles. Despite these similarities, both
Haryana Police
The Haryana Police Department is the law enforcement agency for the state of Haryana, India. Present DGP of Haryana Police is P. K. Agarwal since August 16, 2021. He is an IPS officer of 1988 batch.
History
The Haryana Police were formed when ...
and Punjab Police played down the possibility of the same gang being behind both the attacks. According to journalists
Tavleen Singh
Tavleen Singh (born 1950) is an Indian columnist, political reporter and writer.
Biography
Singh was born in Mussoorie in 1950 in a Jat Sikh family. She studied at the Welham Girls School. She did a short-term Journalism course from the New D ...
and Sreekant Khandekar, the police did this because they did not want to admit their incompetence.
Aftermath
After the Lalru and the Fatehabad killings, there were reports of attacks on Sikh-owned shops in Haryana, and of 12 buses being vandalized. Protest strikes affected
Chandigarh
Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which a ...
,
Shimla
Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared as the summer capital of British India. After independence, the ...
, and many other towns in Punjab, Haryana, and the neighbouring
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
.
See also
*
List of terrorist incidents in Punjab, India
This is a partial list of victims of violence in Punjab (India) during the 1980s and 1990s.
During the Punjab insurgency
After end of Punjab insurgency
On 31 August 1995, Chief minister Beant Singh was killed by a suicide bomber. The ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lalru bus massacre, 1987
July 1987 events in Asia
July 1987 crimes
Massacres in 1987
Mass shootings in India
Insurgency in Punjab
Lalru bus massacre, 1987
Terrorism in Punjab, India
Lalru bus massacre, 1987
Terrorist incidents on buses in Asia
Sikh terrorism in India
Khalistan movement
1987 mass shootings in Asia
Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar district