kya hua is shahar ko --A movie about Hyderabad Communal riots in 1984

[Truth_Holds]

On 15 August 1984, the erstwhile chief minister of Andhra Pradesh NT Rama Rao (NTR) of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was removed from power unconstitutionally while he was undergoing heart surgery in the United States. The Congress party, threatened with the rising power of the regional party — founded by NTR on ideas of Telugu self-respect and dignity — worked behind the scenes to stage a coup by swearing in the Finance Minister Nadendla Bhaskar Rao as the new chief minister. Upon his return, 17 opposition parties including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supported NTR in his “Dharma Yuddham” fight for the restoration of democracy against an authoritarian central government. When NTR asked for a vote of confidence in the Assembly, the BJP supported him while the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) supported Bhaskar Rao. For 31 days the Assembly was unable to meet due to clashes between Hindus and Muslims.

Incidents of mob violence, looting, vandalising of shops etc became rampant, and at the same time, there were reports of street-corner stabbings of random innocent passers-by. Around 250 shops and houses were burnt to ashes. While the official estimates suggested the death toll to be around 54, it is speculated that more than double of that number lost their lives. It was widely reported that the law and order situation was being cited as an excuse to buy time to engineer defections to prevent NTR from returning as the chief minister.