On December 8 and 9, his squadron flew five sorties to Chhamb, three to Raiwind and two against the Jassar Railway Yards. Talwar flew to both the western and eastern sectors. Led by the CO, No.5 squadron’s first counter-air missions were against the PAF airbases at Sargodha and Shorkhot Road,” the IAF history reads. “They took off at 2150 hours despite home base Agra having been attacked an hour earlier. In Sargodha, the runway lights were still on to recover the PAF planes when they bombed. Hours after the Pakistan Air Force struck Indian airfields on December 3, 1971, Talwar and the men in their Canberras took off from Agra, where the runway was damaged. The official history of the IAF records that the English Electric Canberras of his squadron “struck hard and deep in December 1971, virtually against the same targets in Pakistan as they had in September 1965”. Wing Commander Talwar was the commanding officer of the No.5 “Tuskers” Squadron based in Agra in 1971. In the Indian Air Force, Talwar is known as the man who bombed Sargodha in Pakistan. However, it wasn’t long before a second, larger crowd formed outside Talwar’s gates,” writes Pav Singh. That gang was persuaded to disperse by Talwar’s Hindu neighbours, who stood by the family throughout the ordeal. “Talwar appealed to their (the mob’s) sense of patriotism by informing them of his military service. The attacks on Talwar, who died in May 2019, were documented, among others, by British author Pav Singh in his book “1984: India’s Guilty Secret”. Months later, he was released because of the intervention of people who knew him and knew of his gallantry in the 1971 war. The fingers that were so used to wielding the joystick in bombers held the gun and fired into the air. Talwar was determined to save himself and his family. The mobs surrounded his house, going up the roofs of adjacent buildings and pelting stones and fireballs. Group Captain Man Mohan Bir Singh Talwar was caught in the maelstrom. In the pogrom that followed, from November 1 to 4, India’s capital went into a spiral of killings and violence.

On October 31 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. And later, more men spilled out of two buses of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and surrounded the house with shops on the ground floor. Then, in the early afternoon, the neighbourhood youth, plus some.

First, it was a mob of mostly neighbourhood youth. TheRE were three waves of attacks in Delhi’s West Patel Nagar that winter morning.

Wing commander 4