Thirty years ago, Maina Kaur was a young woman in Delhi all set to get married. Her modest home was filled with members of her extended family who had gathered for her wedding. It was then that a mob suddenly attacked her house. The attack was so brutal that it ended up in the murder of eight of her family members including father, brother, uncles and cousins. Maina herself was sexually assaulted and abducted by the mob and she returned home, ravaged and distraught, after three days. Her wedding was called off as the trauma wrecked her physically and mentally. As if all that suffering were not bad enough, the Indian state failed to deliver any semblance of justice to her. None of the accused persons identified by her and her mother have ever been convicted. In varying degrees and forms, such is the searing story of thousands of Sikhs affected by the 1984 carnage.
