Finding Nellie's smoking gun

How a policeman's wireless message that could have saved 3,000 lives, but was ignored and covered up, was uncovereds

- SHEKHAR GUPTA

Just about three months after the Nellie tragedy, exactly 40 years ago on February 18, Assam Police had indeed sent out a specific, written warning that armed mobs of Lalung tribals were gathering around Muslim villages.

The message-later published on the cover of the India Today issue dated May 15, 1983 - read in all capitals (often the language of police wireless): "INFORMATION RECEIVED THAT L/NIGHT ABOUT ONE THOUSAND ASSAMESE OF SURROUNDING VILLAGES OF NELLIE WITH DEADLY WEAPONS ASSEMBLED AT NELLIE BY BEATING OF DRUMS (.) MINORITY PEOPLES ARE IN PANIC AND APPREHENDING ATTACK ANY MOMENT(.)SUBMISSION FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION TO MAINTAIN PEACE (.)" The message was dated February 15, 1983. A neat three days before the killings. The warning that could have saved 3,000 lives had been fully ignored at so many places. There wasn't even an acknowledgement to him. It was written by Zaheruddin Ahmed, station house officer (SHO) or officer commanding (OC) of Nowgong Police Station, to a lot of seniors and stations around Nellie.

As you'd expect, this was the first communication to go behind the strictest secrecy as the coverup began.

This was the smoking gun and had to be somehow found. How we came to know of its existence and then found it is the story we are telling now. We are also doing something journalists rarely do: Reveal the identity of a source even after decades have passed.

Even Mark Felt, the "Deep Throat" in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Watergate investigations, was outed when enough time had passed. In this case, 38 years have passed since the person died. And I have the concurrence of Arun Shourie to reveal this. This smoking gun was found as part of an investigation that Mr Shourie had led at India Today. I was in transit from the Indian Express and busy writing my book, Assam: A Valley Divided. This is how the story unfolded.