New Delhi ( CNN ) -- UK Prime Minister David Cameron visited the site of the infamous 1919 Amritsar massacre by British troops in India on Wednesday -- but those hoping he might apologize for the atrocity were disappointed . Cameron , the first serving British prime minister to visit Amritsar , a Sikh holy city in the northwestern state of Punjab , laid a wreath at a memorial to the hundreds killed in the massacre . Writing in a book of condolences at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial , he described the massacre as `` a deeply shameful event in British history . '' He added , `` We must never forget what happened here . '' However , he did not give a formal apology for the atrocity , which occurred while India was part of the British Empire . A spokesman for Cameron said the British state had always described the massacre as monstrous , but that `` we need to be careful about going around apologizing for things that happened 40 years before the prime minister was born . '' Cameron 's trip to India is focused on promoting closer trade and business links . Queen Elizabeth II and her husband , Prince Philip , previously visited Amritsar in 1997 . In 1920 , then-cabinet minister Winston Churchill condemned the massacre as `` an episode which appears to me to be without precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire ... It is an extraordinary event , a monstrous event , an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation . '' The atrocity occurred when a British Army general ordered troops to open fire to disperse a crowd of unarmed protesters who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh , Amritsar . A report by a British-led committee in the wake of the massacre put the number killed at close to 400 , with three to four times as many people injured . Indian observers put the number killed at more than 1,000 .
David Cameron unveiled a memorial to a similar massacre in the Indian city of Amritsar . English : ` ` We will never forget what happened here '' British prime minister stops short of a formal apology for the colonial - era massacre . Hundreds of people were killed when British police opened fire on unarmed protesters .