video transcript

EDIT CONTAINS 4:3 MATERIAL British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday (February 20) laid a wreath in the northern city of Amritsar at the site of the British Empire's bloodiest episode in India, calling it 'deeply shameful'. Known in India as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in 1919 a group of British soldiers opened fire on an unarmed crowd without warning after a period of unrest, killing hundreds in cold blood. The incident was described by Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the Indian independence movement, as having shaken the foundations of the British Empire. In a message written in the visitors book, Cameron clearly described the massacre as 'deeply shameful.' The British report into the Amritsar massacre at the time said 379 people had been killed and 1,200 wounded. But a separate inquiry commissioned by the Indian pro-independence movement said around 1,000 people had been killed.