Face to Face with Terrorists

It was December; 1983. I had come to Bhubaneswar and was going back to Kurukshetra.

Khalistan movement was then at its peak. Sant Bhindranwal was ruling the roost. The Sikh terrorists hijacked the buses from the roads to fields, singled out the Hindus and shot them dead. In the night they blasted the railway stations. They set transistor bombs on the road side in Delhi. The innocent persons took the transistors home and when they switched on, the bombs inside blasted killing them with their family members. Then there was a Hindu backlash against the Sikh terrorists. In towns and cities like Panipat, Sonepat, Karnal, Ambala, etc the Hindus started harassing the Sikhs. Though no untoward incidents had happened by that time in Kuruskhetra, the town was tense. Of both the communities, the innocents suffered; they were beaten or killed. Whole of north India beyond Delhi was unsafe. When I wanted to go back to submit my dissertation, my friends of Bhubaneswar dissuaded me from travel to North India, particularly during that period as the Hindus had just joined the violence complicating the matters.

The scheduled time of arrival of Neelachal Express at New Delhi Railway station was around 8 at night. There was a connecting train, perhaps Amritsar or Simla Express; I do not exactly remember now, which departed New Delhi at around 8.30 PM. We normally got down from Neelachal, bought tickets and got into the other train. The train reached Kurukshetra at around 11/11.30 PM. My friends had advised me not to catch the connecting train at night. I had decided to spend the night in New Delhi Railway platform and travel in the morning as sabotage like setting ablaze the stations or derailing to cause accidents by the terrorists took place in night only.

That day Neelachal Express was running late. I was not worried as I thought I would have to spend less time in the Delhi platform waiting for the morning to catch my next train. Neelachal arrived on the platform at around 12 AM. I went to the Railway Enquiry to know morning train schedules for Kuruskhetra. The person sitting in the Enquiry told me that a train was standing on the platform for Kuruskhetra hinting that there was no reason to wait for the morning to catch a train. Without thinking anything I bought a ticket and almost ran to the platform where the train was standing. The general compartment was packed to the full; I could manage to find a little space for myself to travel standing.

The passengers were mainly rural folks and petty businessmen. The businessmen had their ware and bales. They were gossiping, cutting jokes with themselves. They seemed unconcerned about the sabotage or terrorism. I found another student standing at a little distance. He looked at me and came near to talk to me. He was a student of Regional Engineering College (REC, now National Institute of Technology), Kuruskhetra. Our campuses were adjacent to each other. He was coming from Gwalior, of course, by a different train. Neelachal was scheduled to arrive at 8 pm, so there was no provision of catering dinner to the passengers in the train. I had not taken dinner, so also the REC student. He had a pack of biscuits that we both shared. One of our co-passengers noticing us conversing in English guessed we were students and offered us to sit on the bales of readymade garments he was carrying. We happily agreed to sit on the bales.

The train reached Kuruskhetra at around 3 AM. We got down and found police camping in the platform. The officer in charge was sitting in the Station Master’s office room. We went to him and asked whether it would be advisable to go to the University at this hour. The University was four/five kms away from the station. The officer asked us about our states and our studies and told they had information that there were terrorists in the city, staying in the gurudwaras, and advised better not to venture till morning. He was a kind hearted man, perhaps he had sons of our age, and father like affection towards us could be felt in his talk and behaviour.

Another police officer joined us. He asked when we had started from home. I told that I started my journey day before yesterday, and had spent two days and two nights in the train. He suggested we might go and freshen up and rest in our rooms. He told that generally the terrorists did their mischiefs during 11 pm to 2 am in the night and it was already 3.30 am. It was dark because of winter days; otherwise it would have dawned within one hour or so. The officer in charge also agreed to his suggestion.

We came out of the station and got onto a rickshaw. After about a mile we found a road side tea stall had opened. We remembered last time we had taken our food the day before at lunch except a few pieces of biscuits at night and we felt suddenly hungry and weak. We could not hold our temptation for a cup of tea with biscuits that would invigorate us. We stopped the rickshaw and went into the stall and ordered buns and tea for us and the rickshaw puller. The stall owner put kettle on the stove to prepare tea. We were happy that soon our journey would end and we would be in our room.

We found four persons clad in blue gowns with flowing beard and long kirpans stuck in the waists suddenly came from nowhere and entered into the shop. They were also holding spears and we suspected they might be in possession of guns hiding behind their long gowns. They occupied vacant seats and ordered tea. We did not have any doubt that they were terrorists. We both were Hindus, so also the tea stall owner. We smelt bad and just to convey that we were outsiders, conversed in English.

One of the four asked us in Hindi, “Where are you from? What are you doing here?”
My friend answered, “We were students, doing our studies in the University. He is from Bhubaneswar, I am from Gwalior.”
That person said, “So you are vidyarthis.” Then he asked me, “Recently there was a bandh called against the sikhs in Odisha?”
A few days back the sikh terrorists, the followers of Bhindranwala had burnt an image of Lord Jagannath in Amritsar. In protest, there was a bandh call in Odisha. I was present on that day in Bhubaneswar. All the shops and offices were open. Buses were running. I answered, “Yes, there was a bandh call, but the people did not observe bandh. Everything was normal. The bandh was observed only in newspapers.”
The persons in blue gowns switched over to Punjabi and discussed among themselves. I could not understand all that they discussed, but guessed they were speaking something against the media. They did not now seem frightening to us. In course of discussion we had also gathered courage and the fear in us for them had disappeared. My friend asked, “Where are you from?”

“Why?” the person asked in surprise and added, “Don’t we look like belonging to this place?”
“No, I have been here since three/four years and have not seen a person like you in this kind of dress, I mean, blue gown, spear and kirpan.”
The person replied, “Of course, we don’t belong to this place, we have come from outside. Can we remain as mere spectators when our people are killed or beaten? We would retaliate. But don’t be so inquisitive…”

He told, paid the bill and they went away. The tea seller had served them first though we had ordered earlier. After they left he said, “I was really afraid of seeing them. My shop was closed since the trouble began a week ago. Today I opened after a week and these people came. We had heard they were staying in Gurudwar.”

We took our tea and left the tea stall. It was yet to be dawn.
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