Ekta New Zealand, a community organisation in Wellington who organised Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Remembrance in April earlier this year is coming up with a photo exhibition for the public.
Co-hosted by New Zealand Indian Central Association (NZICA), the exhibition ‘Jallianwala Bagh Massacre - Punjab Under Siege', is brought by Partition Museum in Amritsar, India and will be held at St Peters Church, Garden Room from Friday, November 22 till Thursday, November 28. The official launch ceremony will be held on Thursday, November 21 at St Peters Chruch on Willis Street, Wellington.
The week-long exhibition will revisit the event, its cause and aftermath and explore the unsaid emotions of the darkest moments of Indian history.
"The exhibition is based on two years of research and curation by the Partition Museum Amritsar; it includes archival and audio-visual material which tells the narrative of the massacre through eyewitness accounts, photographs and official documents," a spokesperson from Ekta New Zealand said.
Wellington is the third city in the world where Jallianwala photo exhibition is being held after Amritsar in India and Manchester in the UK.
Earlier in April this year, Wellington hosted an event marking the anniversary of the massacre that also attended by the then High Commissioner of India, Sanjiv Kohli and British High Commissioner to New Zealand Laura Clarke who called the massacre "a really dark time in British-Indian history."
On April 13, 1919, some 50 British-Indian army soldiers began shooting at unarmed civilians who were taking part in a peaceful protest against oppressive laws enforced in the Punjab region.
At least 379 Sikhs were killed, according to the official record, although local residents said in the past the toll was far higher. The massacre took place in the walled enclosure of Jallianwala Bagh, which is still pocked with bullet marks.