People were killed by militants when they [People] were gathered for meeting.
Is using were gathered is makes above sentence passive voice?
If yes, then can we imagine that there is any agent/doer who gathered people?
As per my knowledge we need to use had gathered as first action is gathered and the killing.
Also, gathered is intransitive verb. So in above sentence does it conveys the meaning that people gathered there for meeting or the they were asked to gather by someone?
People were gathered for meeting by leader and then he started his speech.
Best Answer
"Gathered" is synonymous with "came together" or "met" or "assembled" or "congregated".
Had gathered would be appropriate if you wanted to stress the sequence of events:
After they had gathered for a meeting, they were killed by militants.
If you wanted to say that they were in a group when they were killed:
They were gathered for a meeting when they were killed by militants.
"they were gathered for a meeting... when ... " would not be interpreted as a passive construction—from context it would not be understood to mean "they were rounded up".
But if you wrote:
They were gathered together and then killed by militants.
then it would be understood to mean that they had been rounded up.
The clearly passive construction is "people were killed by militants".