Communal riots occurred in Bihar, India from 24 October to 11 November 1946, in which Hindu mobs targeted Muslim families.
[1] The trigger for the riots that occurred in June was a dispute concerning a false allegation that a woman whom Hindus stated had been abducted by Muslims.
[4] In the village of Andhana, a group of Hindus demanding that the woman be brought forward became violent and were fired upon by Muslims, leading to two fatalities.
[4] A group of 30,000 Hindus led by members of the Arya Samaj attempted to rescue Noor Jahan in the belief that she had been kidnapped from Calcutta during the Direct Action Day riots.
The failure of this rescue attempt turned into a riot, in which 200 houses belonging to 144 Muslim families were burned down, and 14 people were killed.
[5] A statement from the provincial capital of Patna stated that military forces had been deployed against the rioters, and inflicted heavy casualties on them.
[1] On 5 November, Mahatma Gandhi, who was in Calcutta, visiting riot-stricken areas, stated that he would fast unto death if the violence in Bihar did not stop within 24 hours.
[11] Historians such as Suranjan Das have referred to the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946 as the first explicitly political communal violence in the region.