Description:
Dr Oates look back at the tragic murder of a Southall student in the 1970s at Ealing Central Library.

Gurdip Singh Chaggar was a Southall student and lived locally with his family. One night on Fiiday 4th June 1976 he was eating out with friends in a cafe on King Street.

Unfortunately he and some of his friends were involved in a fight with other youths outside and, worse, he was stabbed and died.

Or he was targeted in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths and murdered.

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When Suresh Grover asked police who died, the police said “just an Asian.”

The Monday after the murder (7th June) Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Sewell was quoted in the Evening Standard as saying that ‘The whole affair has been carried away on a wave of mass hysteria’. He went on to describe interpretations of the attack as having ‘racial undertones’ as ‘a load of nonsense talk’.

Former NF leader John Kingsley Read, referred to Chaggar’s death at a speech in Newham on 12th June 1976 with the words ‘One down, a million to go’ - not considered as inciting racial hatred.

Judge Neil Lawson, in delivering the manslaughter verdict, made sure to emphasise his belief that there had been no racial motivation for Chaggar’s attack.

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The killing was widely seen as being racially motivated and a plaque on Southall Town Hall proclaims this fact.

The crime was quickly solved and the killers caught and sentenced, but it led to the founding of the Southall Youth Movement and to both conflict between generations and unity among local people of different races and religions.

This talk examines the key participants and dispels some of the myths surrounding this crime.

Free event

Please register via www.eventbrite.co.uk

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