The Calcutta Riots took place on 28 August 1946 in Bowani Pole, Calcutta, a predominantly Hindu and Sikh area. Muslim casualties were particularly high, with bodies lying in the crossroads, birds flocking to them and leaving them on the streets for days.

　 The Calcutta Riots took place on 28 August 1946 in Bowani Pole, south Calcutta, a predominantly Hindu and Sikh area. Muslim casualties were particularly high. Their corpses lay in the crossroads and birds flocked to the corpses. The corpses were left on the streets for days, with life pouring out around them and lost. Life continued for the people living in the area.

　On 16 August 1946, the Calcutta riots broke out in India and were dubbed the Day of Direct Action. Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League called for a nationwide protest by Muslim Muslims.A cabinet delegation planning the transfer of power to the Indian leadership in 1946 proposed a three-tier structure: central, state groups and state by state. The structure accepted the Muslim League's demand for a separate state in Muslim majority areas for the state groups. Jinnah and his colleagues suspected the Indian National Congress Party of disloyalty to the plan and in July 1946 the Muslim League withdrew its consent to the plan. Jinnah called a general strike on 16 August to press his demand for an independent homeland for Indian Muslims. The only major riot was in Calcutta, where more than 4,000 people were killed within 72 hours and about 100,000 residents were made homeless; the worst massacre took place during the day on 17 August. Europeans were not attacked and were unharmed.

　Massive communal riots broke out in Calcutta and other parts of then undivided Bengal. India was then partitioned in just about 11 weeks, creating an independent state of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority East and West Pakistan. Millions of Muslims migrated to West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Millions of Hindus and Sikhs moved across India's new borders in one of the largest mass migrations in history.