Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25.
Dormers Wells High School (before its demolition and rebuilt in 2011)
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR:
On the evening of Wednesday 11th November 1987, two orthodox Sikhs (Rajinder Singh Batth and Mangit Singh Sunder) sat in the sports hall of Dormers Wells High School in Southall, listening to the sermons of (some say) ‘self-proclaimed’ Guru Darshan Das. It would become one of Britain rare school shootings, and yet, unlike Dunblane, it has almost been forgotten.
THE LOCATION
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The location is marked with a lime green symbol of a bin at the top left of the markers near the word 'Greenford'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Allenby Road in Southall, UB1; one mile west of the last sighting of Alice Gross, two miles north of the Chohan family murders, four roads south-east of where unidentified body parts were found in the canal, and a short walk from the old Grey Woman - coming soon to Murder Mile. Set on a busy residential street, Dormers Wells High School is an all-inclusive secondary and sixth form. It’s a quiet street, but - as with all kids - once the ‘little darlings’ get sugared up, they dash about like Tasmanian Devils with a serious case of the bum-grapes and squeal like Spinal Tap’s roadie has set the volume on all their voices to 11. It’s such a horrific din, the collective cacophony can make cats wince, bats weeps, and those of us with Tinnitus actually wish the awful humming in our ears would increase. But what there isn’t is a memorial to the massacre and the bloodshed which occurred on Wednesday 11th of November 1987, when murder came to this quiet little street. Rebuilt in 2011, a £30 million regeneration project has replaced the old High School with a thoroughly modern one, and although the sounds of squealing and screaming still remain, what it erased was the tragic memory of one of Britain’s only school shootings - a mass murder which was barely reported and is almost forgotten. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 247: The Dormers Wells Massacre. What follows is based on the declassified court records. Gun control. Before 1900, almost every British citizen could carry a gun. Thankfully, seeing sense, in 1903, the first permit and age-restriction limited the sale of weapons to children and some teenagers. By 1919, a mandatory firearms certificate was introduced meaning you had to have a legitimate reason to own a gun. In 1936, short-barrelled shotguns and fully automatic weapons were outlawed. And by 1946, the police no longer deemed ‘self-defence’ a valid excuse to own one, and yet it wasn’t until 1953, that carrying a firearm, outside of supervised and permitted areas, was made illegal. None of these controls happened by mistake, as the laws which made Britain a more civilised and safer country were all exacerbated by a series of gut-wrenching tragedies perpetuated by gun owners. On 13th March 1996, in Dunblane, a small town outside of Stirling in Scotland, 43-year-old former Scout leader Thomas Hamilton entered Dunblane Primary School armed with four handguns. Angry at being blacklisted having committed sex-crimes against minors, he opened fire, wounding 15, and murdering in cold blood, teacher Gwen Mayor and 16 of her young pupils who were all aged between 5 and 6. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in UK history, and so appalled were the people, that Parliament banned the ownership of handguns, all semi-automatics and required a mandatory registration for shotgun owners. Since 1997, 27 years ago, there hasn’t been a school shooting in the United Kingdom. Roughly 30 gun-deaths a year occur in Britain, and yet in comparison, America which has very little gun control, if any at all, it averages a whopping 19500 gun-deaths every year - that’s 53-a-day. At a cost it’s impossible to calculate, the Dunblane massacre made Britain safer, as among those who care (not about their guns, but about their children), every life is precious and should be protected. But it wasn’t a single mass-shooting which led to this change in our law… …as a few years earlier, a little-known massacre occurred at Dormers Wells High School. The target, some say, was a Guru. On 7th December 1953 in Batala, the eighth largest city in the Punjab, Mahraz Darshan Das Ji was born as the second child of three siblings. For some followers of the Sikh faith, Darshan Das was seen as a Guru, but with its more orthodox followers only regarding first ten leaders of Sikhism as the true Gurus, for others, Das was little more than a fake sage in what was a politically volatile time for Sikhs. Hailed by his followers as a spiritual master, it was said that “his birth was prophesied in Bhai Bala’s Janam Sakhi”, the biographies the founder of Sikhism, “which states that the light of Guru Nanak Dev Ji will reappear in the town of Batala and will be born into a ‘Jatt-Brahmin’ family” – which he was. With his life story chronicled by his worshippers, it is said that “at the time of his birth, a snake dropped onto his bed and immediately vanished. That brought his parents attention to seven locks in his hair which resembled the seven-headed great snake, which (as Hindus) was considered a great blessing”. As word spread about the boy and his unusual locks of hair, “Yogis, Peers and Faqirs would stop and see the young Mahraz sitting outside of the doorway… to bow and pay their respects to him”. For many Sikhs, Das was not an ordinary child, as when he visited a nearby eye-hospital, his chroniclers state “he would comfort patients with his polite words… anything he said to them would come true”. In 1966, when Das was 13 years old, while feeding the family’s buffalos with a bale of hay too heavy to lift, “a figure in a white robe with a long white beard asked him if he needed any help. The man asked him to pay attention to the work he was born to do and told him that this weight which he was struggling to lift was nothing compared to ‘the weight of the world’ he was destined to lift upon his shoulders”. Das didn’t think much of it, but this was supposedly his first encounter with the divine. In his teenage years, it was said “at night when walking down the street people around would notice a light radiating from him, almost as if he was carrying a lamp. If someone was sick in their home, he would enter the doorway and the sick person would immediately feel better. At the time Mahraz Ji did not know why this was happening but others were starting to notice his presence as being special”. In 1970, aged 17, it is said that Das received a second spiritual message, stating that “if he wanted to be true… that his true vocation was the ‘service of mankind’”, and having returned to his aunt’s home, so intense was this experience, that he remained unconscious for three days, and - later said by an priest to have been ‘touched by a divine grace’ - after 40 days of fasting, he knew what he had to do. Giving his first sermon on 15th August 1971, this became known as ‘The Day of Enlightenment’ among his worshipers, as over the coming years, as his “unique healing powers” grew, so did his followers. Aged 19, one of his miracles was performed in Batala, when a buffalo (vital to the prosperity of the village) fell into a well of snakes. Unable to get out, Das blessed it, “the well very quickly became full of water, the buffalo was spotted shortly afterwards unhurt and happily grazing in the nearby fields”. For many Sikhs, his divinity was proven when on 16th of February 1980 the Punjab was swathed in the darkness of a solar eclipse, which many believe brings about everything from bad omens to blindness. Reassuring his faithful that no ill would befall them, it didn’t, and Das announced the founding of a new faith, ‘Das Dharam’ which means ‘Service to Humanity’ and laid down its rules and practices. To his followers, Darshan Das was a holy man, who was benevolent and peaceful… …but to the more orthodox Sikhs, he was a fake and a heretic. Das first came to England on the 23rd of December 1979, one year before he founded Das Dharam, and in 1982, having established his first religious centre in Handsworth, Birmingham, he split his time between visiting his followers and giving sermons in school halls right across the United Kingdom. Seen by Orthodox Sikhs as self-styled Guru who was disliked by the fundamentalists for his moderate views, Das was a controversial figure during an increased time of infighting and divide in the Sikh faith. As with many of the world’s biggest issues, it began in the 1930s, when the governance of India was handed back to those it rightfully belonged to, after we have ravaged its resources, looted its treasures and left it in chaos. With each religious group vying for political and financial supremacy, a ‘Khalistan’ was proposed, which split the Sikh faith between those who wanted an ethno‐religious sovereign state for Sikhs in the Punjab, and those who wanted to remain as part of an independent and unified India. Many wars were fought, many lives were lost, and innumerable rivers of blood and tears were spilt. 1984, three years before Das’ murder, was a particularly turbulent year for Sikhs, as from 1st to 10th of June 1984, Operation Blue Star sought to remove militants and separatists from the holiest Sikh site, The Golden Temple. Seen as a barbaric tragedy which left 554 Sikh militants and civilians dead with 83 dead and 236 wounded among the government forces - a figure which is still hotly disputed – it marked the start of a bloody insurgency in the Punjab and radicalised further its more militant Sikhs. Das was pro-India, anti-violence and (some say) a ‘self-proclaimed Guru’, so according to his followers “some religious factions saw his teachings as a corruption of their own faith”, and therefore, he often received death threats. Having condemned the violence by Sikhs fighting for an independent state, in speeches, he defiantly stated “I hold my views as a human right which I will continue to fight for”. With his life frequently in danger, in 1986, a man armed with a sword stormed a prayer meeting with the intent to kill Darshan Das. That day, his killer failed. But it is said that Das had foretold of his own death, as just moments before he was murdered, his chroniclers state “someone in the congregation asked ‘what is death?’ and he replied ‘wait two minutes and you will see it with your own eyes’.” Das’ life was dangling by a thread, as the threats came thick and fast… …but the coverage he received in the press only angered the fundamentalist Sikhs further. In the Sunday Mirror dated 7th September 1986, it states “John Kensit says he has been miraculously cured and has cancelled his heart operation after meeting the Guru. John said ‘Darshan Das touched my hands, recited a prayer and told me to repeat it each night’. Although a heart specialist later commented in the article “I think it would be wrong to put too much credence on an Indian holy man”. The mystical Indian Guru with the healing powers had come to Britain, and although some believed it, some didn’t and some were scared of it, there were others who were angered by his ‘fake miracles’. In the Sunday Mercury dated 15th of November 1987, four days after his death, it read “an unnamed businessman claimed ‘he lost his family, his parents and sisters who had fallen under the influence of Darshan Das. He said the self-proclaimed guru preyed on the fears of women…he alleged that Mrs Das sold bottles of water for £11 claiming they had healing powers, and demanded cash donations for his sect, instead of traditional Sikh gifts such as salt, sugar and flour’”. Later stating “he came to Britain because there was money here, he is not interested in traditional gifts, only cash. I also have a video of him laughing at the people he claimed to be healing’”. Although, when asked, Chief Inspector Keith Newell of West Midland Police said “we have never had any complaints about activities at the temple”. As a precaution, Das’ home in Handsworth was protected by alarms, locks and CCTV… …only his killers wouldn’t kill him at his bed in Birmingham, but in a school in Southall. Rajinder Singh Batth was a 37-year-old orthodox Sikh who believed in violence to achieve a ‘Khalistan’. Born in the Punjab in 1950, having come to England in 1972 and later losing his job at a plastics factory in Feltham one year before, being unemployed, by 1987, he was living on Burns Avenue in Southall, a few streets south of the Dormers Wells High School, where every Wednesday, Darshan Das preached. The plan was Batth’s idea, stating “he used to read the prayers out of our Guru Granth Sahib”, the Sikh scriptures, “calling himself a guru and being a Singh, I couldn’t bear this because after the ten gurus there’s no other guru except for Guru Granth Sahib. He was spoiling our culture. We don’t want fake sages. Any person can read the prayers from the Guru Granth Sahib, but he can’t call himself a Guru”. To get close to his target and to assess the site of this soon-to-be assassination, Batth attended several of Das’ Wednesday evening prayer meetings at the Dormers Wells High School across the four months prior. As a local Sikh, he blended in, and it gave him ample opportunity to assess the room, its exits, its timing, and to get up-close to his intended target. But with the congregation ranging from 150 and 300 worshippers, he knew he needed an accomplice with the same political beliefs as him. His name was Mangit Singh Sunder, a 25-year-old factory worker from Sandwell, who Batth knew well, being both members of fundamentalist groups within the International Sikh Youth Federation. Batth’s intention was sketchy at best, as to the Police, he confessed that he intended to murder Das, stating “we thought if he called himself a Guru again, we’d shoot him. I have been to these sessions many times thinking that he would stop but did not, that is why I shot him”. Later changing this to “I thought I would hit him in the legs”, which went against all the evidence. But at his trial, he changed his story again, stating “we planned to use the guns to force the audience to listen to our words”. And yet, what is without doubt was that – in premeditation - he had purchased guns. On an undetermined date in August 1987, although he’d been unemployed for a year and wasn’t on any benefits, either on a street in Southall or outside of a Sikh temple in Handsworth – as different sources give different accounts – “I met a black man”, Batth said, and for £250 (£880 today) he bought single barrelled Soviet-made sawn-off shotgun, a .22 calibre handgun and a .38 Smith & Wesson. Batth & Sunder were ready to kill… …but did Batth save money for this, or was he funded by someone else? Wednesday 11th of November 1987 was a typically British day, as a cold wet drizzle howled among a biting wind. That day, from noon onwards, Batth & Sunder drove the second-hand car, said to be a Datsun, which they’d purchased as a getaway car and drove around Southall with the guns in the boot. Driving to an isolated spot, Batth & Sunder loaded the guns, which they split among them; Sunder had the sawn-off shotgun and the pistol (said to be a Luger), and Batth had the .38 Smith & Wesson, which may seem unfair, but with the pistol holding just six bullets and the shotgun with only two, Batth’s .38 revolver was loaded with 6 bullets, and in his jacket pocket he’d stashed 8 spares, if he needed them. At a tree, Batth test-fired his revolver, and with Sunder strapping the shotgun and pistol to his chest, and Batth hiding the pistol in his waist-strap, they parked-up on Allenby Road at 9pm, and headed in. Dressed in a black and brown turban, a shirt, trousers and a grey jumper, Batth and his gun-toting ally entered the sports hall and blended in among the throng of worshippers, who all sat upon the floor. As part of the planned format, with the evening being one of three mandatory prayer times for Sikhs, from a slightly elevated dais, Das sat and recounted songs, prayers and hymns from the holy scripture, spoken in Punjabi, and for education purposes a tape recorder captured this sermon on a cassette. At roughly 9:30pm, with the prayer meeting coming to an end, some of the congregation said “Batth looked ill-at-ease” having shifted uncomfortably as Das came amidst the congregation talking to the people, answering their questions, and Batth said “making them bow to his feet”, as if he was a Guru. “He kept talking for quite a while, we kept listening”, Batth said. But it was as Das spoke the words “we imagine in Punjabi”, that Sunder suddenly shouted “you dog” and pulled out his sawn-off shotgun. From those two words to the final shot, the Dormers Wells Massacre lasted just 16 seconds. Having stood up, both men filed down the sides of the silenced congregation. Unsure what was going on, it happened so fast that the crowd were still seated when Sunder blasted the shotgun at Das from just six feet away. And although the two men were almost within touching distance, Sunder missed. Whether though nerves, fear or bad marksmanship, as the crowd panicked and the terrified masses fled towards the nearest exits, as Sunder cocked the shotgun’s hammer, a group of Das’ most faithful dived on the shooter, flooring him before he could get a last shot off and disarming him of the shotgun. Seeing the uprising and fearing for his life, Batth held his pistol in the air, as if the warn the crowd, but still they surged. And as Sunder struggled, having pulled out the pistol, he fired in panic, shooting 45-year-old Joga Singh of Southall, who as a writer of Psalms had just seconds earlier had punched him. Seeing Sunder struggle, as the crowd cornered, floored and beat him with chairs, as the crowd surged towards him, Batth also fired in panic, shooting 41-year-old telecoms engineer Satwant Singh Panesar in the chest, and 53-year-old shopkeeper Dharan Singh Bimbrah in the leg, with both being unarmed. Batth later claimed (in a cowardly self-serving way) “I didn’t want to kill him”, meaning Das, “but when the people jumped onto my friend, I lifted up my pistol into the air, pointing it at the ceiling, hoping it would stop them doing what they were doing, a maniac grabbed my arm, pulled it down and it went off by mistake” – which the recording, eye-witness testimony and even his own confession disproved. Later stating in court, “when I fired at Das and was stepping back, my foot slipped and it was then that they caught me. Shots got fired then because my finger was on the trigger”, although witnesses state “Batth jumped on stage, pulled the .38 from his waistband and from a few feet away, shot at Das”. With this single shot entering his skull at the back of his ear, the bullet penetrated his head, and having ricocheted off the petrous bone - being the hardest bone in the skull - its deathly sharp fragments shot down into his chest, penetrated his vital organs like his lungs, heart, and filled the cavity with blood. With Batth floored by Das’ unarmed worshippers, as he tried to flee, he was floored, beaten with a microphone stand, stamped on and he says stabbed, “then I lost consciousness”, and although he would claim “they tried to kill me”, an examination determined his cuts and bruises were superficial. In total, 12 shots were fired, 8 of them missed, and the entire massacre ended after 38 seconds. Police and ambulances from nearby Southall Police station and Ealing Hospital were on site in minutes, the scared congregation were ushered to safety, and although chaotic, a crime scene was established. Inspector Geoffrey Brydon and Detective Inspector Paul Secombe obtained testimony from more than 150 witnesses, the guns were retrieved, fingerprints were found, and both shooters were questioned. Of the four men shot, with the bullet in Bimbrah’s leg, he made a good recovery and was released from hospital nine days later. Joga Singh, the psalms writer who always accompanied Das was shot in the stomach and died five hours later during surgery. Panesar, the British Telecoms engineer remained critical for two weeks, and although he was transferred to Charing Cross hospital to be put on a kidney machine, he died, leaving behind a widow, a 9-year-old son and twin daughters, aged just 5. And although was rushed to nearby Ealing Hospital, which was just one and a half miles away, being unconscious and barely breathing owing to a bullet wound to the head and massive internal bleeding, 33-year-old Darshan Das – the prophesized Guru of ‘Das Dharam’ - was declared dead on arrival. (End) As expected, some sects of Sikhism condemned the murders as despicable, and although the Punjab Times reported that the International Sikh Youth Federation (who Sunder & Batth were both members of) “had praised the efforts of the murderers”, they later “denied any connection with the incident”. Arrested and charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, Sunder was said to be co-operative, while Batth claimed he didn’t speak English, which he did, he repeatedly lied in his statements, and although declared fit to be interviewed, he routinely complained he had a headache. Given the risk of retaliation that these murders had unleashed, Batth & Sunder were transported in an armoured van to the Old Bailey, where their 14-day trial began on Monday 20th of February 1989. With Mangit Sunder pleading guilty to the murder of Darshan Das and the manslaughter (reduced to the lesser charge of the malicious wounding) of Satwant Panesar, on the 9th of March 1989, he was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 20 years, plus 8 years to be served concurrently. And although, the trial almost collapsed - as at an after-dinner speech, the judge, Sir James Miskin QC made a racially charged references to black people being ‘nig nogs’ and of the Dormers Wells killers being ‘murderous Sikhs’ which he denied and was later blamed on early on-set Alzheimer’s - Rajinder Batth was sentenced to life with a minimum of 30 years, plus 10 years to be served concurrently. Having served their sentences at HMP Frankland, Sunder was released in late 2010, and in December 2021, Batth returned to India where (for the murders) he was honoured at the Akal Takht temple in the Punjab. As of today, Batth lives as a freeman, and the schism amongst the Sikhs still rages on. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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