1930 Dhaka riots

The 1930 Dhaka riots was a communal violence involving loot and arson.

Events

On the night of 9 June, a nearly 1,000 strong Muslim crowd cried that the Hindus had tried to set their houses on fire. The revenge against the attack was taken on the night of 10 June. The miscreants set fire to the timber go-down adjoining the residence of Shyam Chand Basak, a well to do businessman from Nawabpur.

Looting in nearby villages

When rioting started in Dhaka city, the nearby villages were looted as well. The families belonging to the Bengali Hindu trading castes were the worst affected. The Hindu men, women and children took refuge in the nearby jute fields to save their lives. They looted every movable article in the houses, including the wooden doors and in one or two cases, the corrugated iron sheets used for roofing. They dug up the ground and searched the bottom of the ponds, every nook and corner of the homestead, where valuable household articles like bell metal utensils may have been hidden. In one case, a dhenki was looted.

Investigation

Two independent committees were set up for investigating into the disturbances, one by the government and other by the citizens of Dhaka. Many people, including eminent citizens of Dhaka deposed before the latter committee. The eminent citizens included P. Haldar of Government Women's Teacher Training School, Tapas Ranjan Bandyopadhyay of Dhaka Jana Samiti, Rajani Kanta Basak, the Direct of Dhakeshwari Cotton Mills and Surendranath Bhattacharya, retired police inspector. The witnesses stated that the Deputy Superintendent of Police was seen going around the city in company of 300 to 400 Muslim goons. P. Haldar witnessed Muslims looting shops near her school and saw police constables taking part in the looting.

Further reading

• Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter
• Carving blocs: communal ideology in early twentieth-century Bengal

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