Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre

Qissa Khwani bazaar massacre
British troops in Peshawar during the demonstrations
Location	Peshawar, British Raj, now Pakistan
Date	23 April 1930
Target	Khudai Khidmatgar protestors
Attack type	Mass murder, Massacre
Deaths	20 demonstrators killed according to official reports. Nationalist claims of up to 400 killed.

The massacre at the Qissa Khawani Bazaar (the Storytellers Market) in Peshawar, British India (modern day Pakistan) on 23 April 1930 was one of the defining moments in the non-violent struggle of the Indian independence movement. It was the first major confrontation between British troops and non-violent demonstrators in the then peaceful city. Estimates at the time put the death toll from the shooting at nearly 400 dead. The gunning down of unarmed people triggered protests across India and catapulted the newly formed Khudai Khidmatgar movement onto the national scene.

The Khudai Khidmatgar (literally Servants of God), led by Ghaffar Khan, were a group of Pashtuns committed to the removal of British rule through non-violent methods. On 23 April 1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested after giving a speech in Utmanzai urging resistance to British rule. Ghaffar Khan's reputation for uncompromising integrity and commitment to non-violence inspired most of the local townspeople to take the oath of membership and join the Khudai Khidmatgar in protest.

Simultaneous demonstrations were led by a cross section of civil society in and around Peshawar, led by Maulana Abdur Rahim Popalzai against discriminatory laws like the Frontier Crimes Regulation against the people of the province.

After other Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were arrested, a large crowd of the group gathered at the Qissa Khwani bazaar. As British Indian troops moved into the bazaar, the crowd was loud and stones were thrown. A British Army dispatch rider was killed and his body burned. Two British armored cars drove into the square at high speed, killing several people. It is claimed that the crowd continued their commitment to non-violence, offering to disperse if they could gather their dead and injured, and if British troops left the square. The British troops refused to leave, so the protesters remained with the dead and injured. At that point, the British ordered troops to open fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd. The Khudai Khidmatgar members willingly faced bullets, responding without violence. Instead, many members repeated 'God is Great' and clutched the Qur'an as they went to their death.

The exact number of deaths remains controversial— official figures give 20 dead while nationalist sources claimed several hundred were killed, with many more wounded. Two platoons of a respected British Indian Army regiment, the Royal Garhwal Rifles, refused to board buses that were to take them into Peshawar for anti-riot duty. A British civil servant wrote later that "hardly any regiment of the Indian Army won greater glory in the Great War (World War I) than the Garhwal Rifles, and the defection of part of the regiment sent shock waves through India, of apprehension to some, of exultation to others." The NCOs of the two platoons involved were sentenced to terms of up to eight years imprisonment.