[1] The shooting of unarmed people triggered protests across British India and catapulted the newly formed Khudai Khidmatgar movement into prominence.

Ghaffar Khan's reputation for uncompromising integrity and commitment to non-violence inspired most of the local townspeople to take the oath of membership and join the Khudai Khidmatgar in protest.

It is claimed that the crowd continued their commitment to non-violence, offering to disperse if they could gather their dead and injured, and if the British Indian Army left the square.

[5] The exact number of deaths remains controversial— official figures give 20 dead[8] while nationalist sources claimed several hundred were killed, with many more wounded.

Two platoons of a respected British Indian Army regiment, the Royal Garhwal Rifles, refused to board buses that were to take them into Peshawar for anti-riot duty.

"[5] The NCOs of the two platoons, including one led by Hawaldar Major Chandra Singh Garhwali, involved were sentenced to terms of up to eight years imprisonment.

When the number of corpses became too many, the ambulance cars of the government took them away.In Peshawar and the surrounding area, the Khudai Khidmatgar experienced some of the most extreme crackdowns against the Indian independence movement.

The British Commission brought the case forward to Chief Justice Naimatullah Chaudhry, a distinguished Judge of the Lucknow protectorate.

Naimatullah personally surveyed the area of massacre and published a 200-page report criticizing the actions of the British Indian Army.

British Library reference number L/PJ/6/2007):[10] ″I received a note on 23rd April evening from Sir Norman Bolton asking me to do what I could to arrange for the burial of as many of the casualties as possible during the night, in order to avoid the danger of a fresh riot occurring over the funeral procession.