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Explainer | What happened in the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Sikhs in British-ruled India?

  • British police are holding a 19-year-old man who broke into Windsor Castle where Queen Elizabeth was spending Christmas
  • He purportedly made a video claiming he was an Indian Sikh who would attempt to ‘assassinate’ the monarch as revenge for the Jallianwala Bagh incident

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The renovated Jallianwala Bagh martyrs’ memorial in Amritsar, India. Photo: AFP

British police are investigating a video that is circulating on social media, purportedly of a man who is now in custody and being treated for mental health issues.

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The 19-year-old was arrested for trying to break into Windsor Castle where Queen Elizabeth was spending Christmas.
In the video, the man dressed in a dark hoodie and holding a crossbow, said he wanted to assassinate the 95-year-old monarch for an incident in British-ruled India in 1919.

The man also said in the video that he was seeking revenge for those who have been killed, humiliated and discriminated against because of their race.

What happened in 1919?

On April 13, 1919, Brigadier General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, an officer of the British Indian Army, ordered a squad of local soldiers to open fire into a 182-metre-long enclosed space in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, where more than 20,000 residents had gathered to protest against implementation of a colonial law that gave unlimited powers to the government to imprison people without trial.

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