Assassination of PM Indira Gandhi

 

Indira Gandhi’s house was on Safdarjang Road, she stayed with her son, Rajeev Gandhi, her daughter in-law Sonya Gandhi and her grandchildren Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi. Indira Gandhi’s office was on 1 Akhbar Road, which was beside her house on Safdarjang road but there was a wall in-between creating a partition. There was a door in-between the partition wall and the wall was decorated with Bougainvilleaflowers.

In the morning she would be in Delhi, she would get ready and head towards her office on 1 Akhbar road and meet the public. The people who came to see her would act like the poor and greedy people, these people would come from all across the country, they would stand in a line with their hands folded. She would only meet her main contacts and the people who beg the most in her office.

On the 31st of October 1984, she had cancelled her program to meet the public because she wanted to spend another hour with her grandchildren because they were in a state of shock, because the day before, when they were coming back from school their car collided with a van. Even though this was quite a minor accident but due to her superstitious mind she thought that this was an attack from the Sikh Kaum.

On that day a foreign TV reporter Peter Ustinov had arranged a live interview for the BBC with her. Her interview was meant to start at 9am. Peter was a drama script writer and also a comedy actor. Exactly at 9am she received a message letting her know all the preparations for the interview have been done. She had got her makeup done by her makeup man Dharamvir Nanda and had worn an orange sari. She ordered her servants to make tea for the makeup man and personal doctor K.P. Mathur and headed towards Akhbar road. On her left side she had her main assistant R.K Dhavan and on her right she had a security officer S.C Narayan. She had her personal servant Nathu Ram who was walking behind her holding an umbrella and ASI Rameshwar Diyal was also with her.

As she crossed the wall through the door, Sardar Beant Singh was standing in front of her, he greeted her by saying Namaste which she also replied back by saying Namaste. Before she could move any further forward Sardar Beant Singh reached for her Government revolver and sprayed her with bullets. She fell flat on her face and in time Sardar Satwant Singh appeared from behind the partitioning wall and opened fire and emptied the magazine of his Stengun. After this, Sardar Beant Singh shot her with another two bullets just to make sure for his own satisfaction that Indira Gandhi is now dead.

According to Peter Ustinov’s watch the time was 9:08:27am. From the first few bullets of Sardar Beant Singh it seemed like fireworks were going off, but when Sardar Satwant Singh emptied the magazine of his sten gun then the suspicion arose that bullets were being shot. But then with Sardar Beant Singh’s last two bullets, the suspicion was confirmed.

Indira Gandhi lay on the cement footpath in a puddle of her own blood. Fountains of blood were spurting out of Indira’s body from all sides. Peter Ustinov never got to do his interview but he did take pictures of Indira Gandhi’s body lying in her own pool of blood. Hearing the noise of the bullets Sonya Gandhi came running out and seen her mother in law lying on the floor. Her body guards stood frozen like stone statues. Rameshwar Diyal was bleeding, his thigh was wounded, two bullets had hit him, it is more than likely that he got caught up in the cross firing.

Escort HS Narayan shouted for a doctor. Normally there would be at least one doctor who would be ready with the prime minister. During that time the doctor was off duty. He tried to resuscitate the prime minister by giving her mouth to mouth but the doctor realised that there was no pulse and her blood pressure ended.

The prime ministers cronies were so scared and shaken that they forgot that there was an ambulance outside ready and waiting that had an oxygen cylinder and other machines fitted. They even had a great wireless set through which the medical institute could be contacted in an emergency. Which they all forgot due to the state of shock they were in. The wounded Prime minister was put in the escorts car and was taken to AIMS (All India Medical Science Institute). A telephone call was made to Ram Manohar Lohiya hospital to keep an ambulance ready but also send one. After, the emergency ambulance on standby was cancelled.

In the back seat of the escort car, Sonia Gandhi had her mother in-laws body on her lap, Indira’s body was gushing with blood. There was another white ambulance car which was travelling along side the escort car which was also going to AIMS, it had Dr ML Fatehdar aboard. When the prime minister had arrived at AIMS there were only 4 Union doctors who were on duty. Indira’s wounded body was put on a stretcher, when instead she should be put on a straight hard board and taken to the accident ward. A woman saw Indira and screamed, “They have killed madam!” It took a while for the doctors to suss out that the woman was referring to the Indian Prime minister. Doctor Kumar first of all took a look at her. He checked her pulse which had stopped. He massaged her heart, she was still on the stretcher, but should have been placed on a hard board. But the doctors didn’t want to waste one second to try and save her. He gave support to her left arm and lifted her up and massaged her heart so that it would start beating again. Along with that he put an oxygen mask on her so that her lungs and brain would start working. The blood transfusion machine was hooked up to her and on the other hand the operation theatre was prepared.

Even though there was only little hope that the prime minister would survive, she was still taken to the 2nd operation theatre room on the 8th floor, where within 1 hour of her getting injured she was put on a life support machine. After this the rest of treatment started.

 Now Indira Gandi was in the hands of four  doctors who were heart experts including Dr P Vinu Gopal, Dr KS Layer, Dr Baba Das and Dr IM Rao, there was only three basic surgeons who where Dr MM Kapoor, Dr NS Shula and Dr IK Dhavan. There were also another four doctors who were experts in stopping the pain and their names were Dr GR Modh, Dr SS Saini, Dr Jeya Lakshmi and Dr Nita Saxsena. All others were under the supervision of the head nurse, Katherine Thomas and they were Nurse BK Saxsena, Stanley J Pal, N Joshi, Nurse Kulwant Kaur Saini, Haseena Rani Badhiya and Kiran Bhatia. This is probably the first in medical history that so many doctors and nurses were working on the one case to save someone who is injured. There may not have even been any space to stand beside her.

There were 4 surgeons who were operating to take out the bullet in her chest and at the same time there was another 4 surgeons who were taking out the bullets in her stomach. The wound was very big. The doctors seen that one side of the liver, lung and arteries have been wounded due to the bullets. The veins in her stomach were destroyed. Two bullets had wounded the right side of her chest and shoulder. Another bullet had hit her left shoulder and left arm. Another bullet had hit and wounded her right armpit. Three bullets hit and wounded her right leg and thigh. One bullet struck her left thigh. Due to her falling on her back, her back was peeled and due to all the bullets in her stomach there was so many holes. X-ray reports showed that her joints in her arms had shattered. Her spine was broken as well. After having so many bullets shot in her even if she was considered dead for the doctors they still continued with their treatment to try and save her. She was given 88 bottles of blood, which is 4 times the amount of blood that a healthy person has in their body. According to Dr Shula this was necessary as every part of her body had blood gushing out of it. 20+ bullets are pierced her body. The doctors had removed 7 bullets from her body and stopped the blood flow. Because the bullets were shot from such a nearby distance some of the bullets didn’t pierce through her body and were found in her sari. When all attempts to revive Indira Gandhi failed, AIMS superintendent Dr AL Safayea announced Indira Gandhi to be dead at 2.30pm. This was the end of a horrifying, destructive and a cruel women.

After killing Indira Gandhi on her own door step, Sardar Beant Singh and Sardar Satwant Singh surrendered themselves. Sardar Beant Singh put his revolver on the ground and roared “We have done what we wanted to, now you can do what you want.”

Vangaar – October 2011