I looked up and saw more bodies. I think that after that, we became numb to feeling—the paddy fields were full of young women, older women, old men, young children who were struck down. In one small patch of land, I counted 200 bodies which lay where they had fallen. Yet, how had the young men survived?

The answer was simple: because they could run faster than the women, the old, the infirm and the children.

A cluster of huts peeped out of a grove of coconut and betel leaf trees. That was Bhagduba Habi.

The survivors talked of how they had been chased from the Nellie side and had crossed the canal, believing that they would be safe in the rice-fields. Then they saw two other column of Tiwa tribespeople coming in from either flank, moving to cut off the last bit of open space in a pincer movement. That was when all hope died. The old, the weak, the women and the very young fell to the rushing mob and its spears, daos, bows and arrows and muskets. The young and fit ran the fastest, fleeing from certain death, and staggered their way to a small Air Force station about five kilometres away. That was how the world came to know of Nellie.

Motalib and others said that they were attacked by strangers as well as by people with whom they had grown up. ‘We went to the same school,’ Motalib said as he recounted the killings. ‘I still don’t know how they could have done this.’

After the killings, which had been planned meticulously, most of the Tiwa men fled to the surrounding hills. After some weeks, the tension appeared to have abated; they began returning home stealthily. Scores of Muslim children who had been orphaned were settled in a Save Our Souls (SOS) children’s village, some waking to repeated nightmares of horror and death. These began to abate as they grew to adulthood.

Despite extensive police operations, only a handful of the killers were held. A Congress Party leader from Nogaon town spoke to a few of them. ‘An evil wind blew, sir, and overwhelmed us,’ one of the Tiwas remarked.

Be that as it may, few of the Tiwas were prosecuted for the slaughter. Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, rushed to Nellie in a helicopter from Guwahati. While the other reporters were kept at bay, by some fluke I landed up next to her, asking about the violence and whether the Government of India would take any responsibility for the tragedy. No, she snapped, the students and the agitators were to blame; they had created a climate of violence by spurning talks with the Government.

Mrs Gandhi drove off in a dusty convoy, saw a few burned out hamlets, met no one, kept her counsel and helicoptered back to Guwahati. The police were tense.