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Cameraperson: Abhay Sharma
Video Editor: Kunal Mehra
Tilak Vihar in Delhi is home to almost 900 families, most of them Sikhs. The locality, rather the people living here, have a dark past which haunts them even today. Perhaps that’s the reason why everyone knows Tilak Vihar as the widows’ colony.
Almost every family here lost their loved ones in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
There are very few success stories here, almost 90% of those who were in the 10-16 years' age group in 1984 could do nothing with their lives.
When the survivors of the riots were resettled in Tilak Vihar, the women were also given low-level government jobs. This was their only means to earn a living.
Lakhvinder Kaur’s son, Kirpal Singh, was 10 years old in 1984. Since he was the eldest child in the family, he had to start earning to support his mother. At a young age, a truck driver gave him opium, and soon he was addicted, an addiction which he still suffers from.
Locals allege that post-1984, drugs flowed freely & easily into Tilak Vihar as part of a ploy by the politicians & officials. They wanted to numb the youth, a ploy to curb any uprising for revenge after the riots. Many of these drug addicts died in their 30s.
Those who were in their teens in the mid 80s never got a decent education, they just got busy with survival.
More than 3 decades after the anti-Sikh riots, Tilak Vihar is still reeling under the aftermath of the riots. Even the current generation, who are in their mid-20s, are living the same life as their parents, with no hope for a better future.
'Riot - Stories of those left behind,' is a special series which highlights the futility and aftermath of some of the worst riots in India. You can read the other stories and watch the videos in this series here:
"Settle Us Outside the Valley," Says a Kashmiri Pandit Who Never Left Srinagar
'Can We Ever Go Back Home?' For Kashmiri Pandits, Home is Only a Distant Dream
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