What was the Jallianwala Bagh massacre?

Jallianwala Bagh was a small 6-7 acre public park close to the Golden Temple at Amritsar where some 20-25000 unarmed villagers had congregated on the occasion of the religious festival Baisakhi. There was a ban on public assembly but most of the assembled villagers were unaware of this. Suddenly without any warning through public address system to leave the premises, British Army Colonel Dyer blocked the entries by tanks, closed the exit gates opened fire on the crowd for 10 minutes. As a resullt thousands were killed and more were injured, though the official figures report 379 dead and 1100 injured. There was a huge public outcry against this savagery, Rabindra Nath Tagore renounced his "Knighthood" and all parties protested against the ruling British Government. read less