Noakhali riots
| Noakhali Riots | |
|---|---|
| Part of Partition of Bengal (1947) | |
Gandhi listens to a survivor in Noakhali, 1946 | |
| Location | Noakhali Region, Bengal (present-day Bangladesh), British India |
| Date | 10 October 1946 – early November 1946 |
| Target | Bengali Hindus |
| Deaths | 285 Hindus,
~200 (Roy Bucher, Indian Army chief), ~200 (Francis Tucker) |
| Perpetrators | sections of the local Muslim population |
| Defenders | Hindus, local leaders, relief organizations |
| Motive | Religious tensions, retaliation for earlier riots in Calcutta |
| Part of a series on |
| Persecution of Hindus in pre-1947 India |
|---|
| Issues |
| Incidents |
| Part of a series on |
| Persecution of Bengali Hindus |
|---|
| Discrimination |
| Persecution |
|
| Opposition |
The Noakhali riots were a series of semi-organized massacres, rapes and abductions of Hindus, combined with looting and arson of Hindu properties, perpetrated by Muslim mobs in the districts of Noakhali in the Chittagong Division of the eastern part of British Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) in October–November 1946, a year before India's independence from British rule.
It affected the areas under the Ramganj, Begumganj, Raipur, Lakshmipur, Chhagalnaiya and Sandwip police stations in Noakhali district and the areas under the Hajiganj, Faridganj, Chandpur, Laksham and Chauddagram police stations in Tipperah district, a total area of more than 2,000 square miles.
The massacre of the Hindu population started on 10 October, on the day of Kojagari Lakshmi Puja and continued unabated for about a week. Around 50,000 Hindus were marooned in the affected areas subordinate to the Muslims radicals, where the administration had no say.
Mahatma Gandhi camped in Noakhali for four months and toured the district in a mission to restore peace and communal harmony. In the meantime, the Indian National Congress leadership started to accept the proposed Partition of India and the peace mission and other relief camps were abandoned. The majority of the survivors migrated to West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.