Delhi violence not riots but pre-planned attack on people

By Naz Asghar

March 14, 2020

New Delhi: A visit to the horrifying scenes of destruction and mayhem in the lanes and by-lanes of Shiv Vihar and talking to the people of the locality, the most affected one in the recent Delhi violence, leaves no one, even the most undiscerning, in doubt that what happened here were not riots but organised and pre-planned attacks on the people.

The tension between those demonstrating for and against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and NRC has been building up for quite sometime, and it heightened a few days after the Delhi elections in which the BJP lost badly to Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, and on February 24, it finally turned into a pogrom in Shiv Vihar carried out by outsiders, say eye witnesses.

”Calling it riots will not be appropriate, as one community only acted in self-defence when the other brought armed goons in thousands from outside the area. Some political leaders had already declared that if the police did not clear the Jafrabad metro station anti-CAA protest site, they will do it themselves,” and that is what they did, ” said a youth from the minority community living in Shiv Vihar area.

The burnt house of Shakir Ali in Shiv Vihar

”They had taken position from atop a three- storey building and gunning down people, which left no choice to the targeted people in our locality to use whatever they could find in self-defence, as the police was not coming to our help,” said another youth of the community.

This area is a Hindu dominated locality with a sizeable Muslim population, and both the communities have been living here peacefully in perfect harmony for years. The Muslims, though lesser in numbers, never felt any threat from their Hindu neighbours, and both the communities celebrated Holi and Eid peacefully and participated in each other’s festival.

So, when on the 24rth of the last month, the violence broke out they were caught unawares. ” It were not the local people, we have no idea. They did not belong to this area,” said a Muslim youth Guddu, and his neighbour Ajit Pal Singh who live at the entry point of a road in the locality which was the reason they could flee in time as the mob came from the other end.

Meenakshi and Lakshmi, also neighbours of Guddu are at a loss to understand what happened and from where came the mob. ” It can’t be the handiwork of the local people. And why should it be as we have been living in peace with with our Muslim neighbours for so many years. We really don’t know where the mob came from,” they said.

Shakir Ali, whose house and shop which is on the ground floor of his building were blasted by petrol bombs and LPG cylinders, said that the weapons used in the attack and selective manner in which the burning of houses has taken place shows that the attacks were preplanned.

”Though our Hindu neighbours were not involved in the attack, but the way the houses of minority community were targeted selectively, indicates that some local anti-social elements must have helped the mob in identifying ours houses, ”he said.

A closer look at the targets and talks with the local people substantiates the claim made by Shakir Ali and a number of others of his community. A look at the incidents of arson in parking areas in Shiv Vihar also leads to the conclusion that the targets were not randomly but selectively chosen.

Two neighbours–a Hindu and a Muslim– in Shiv Vihar sitting in front of their looted houses.

The failure of police to come to the rescue of the people was the common complaint, with only a very few instances in which the force came, though very late to rescue the people.

”Instead of the police helping us, they closed the roads when the mayhem broke out, with the result that a number of people could not reach the safety of their houses or of their friends and relatives and were stranded on the main road to be killed by the armed mob, with no policeman coming to their help” said a youth of the locality.

”When the mob started burning houses, we started calling the police, but hours passed by with no force coming to rescue us, and then somehow with the help of our neighbours, including Hindus, we were able to escape,” he said.

The mosque burnt by armed mob in Shiv Vihar area.

Two elderly women said,” After hours of calling, a team of three policemen came, and one of them told us that ”you people were so much crying for ‘azadi’ ( freedom), so here is the fruit, though the other two reprimanded their colleague for saying so.” ”But when did we ask for azaadi, we never did in life,” was the innocent remark of the two octogenarians, belonging to some weaker sections of the society. ‘Azadi’ from injustice, oppression was the popular slogan of anti-CAA protesters.

A young, poor woman from Shiv Vihar lodged at Mustafabad Idgaah relief camp is at a loss to understand what was the fault of the community. ” After all what is our crime. We women, like those in Shaheen Bagh, were peacefully protesting against something which we found was unjust. We were not doing any harm to anyone. Why frame and attack the innocent. Book those guilty of violence , whether Hindu or Muslim, and bring them to book. No problem.”

Displaced families who have taken shelter in Mustafabad Eidgah relief camp.

A youth from Mustafabad said,” it was a scene no less than ‘qiyamat'(doomsday), there was death and destruction all round, with smoke and fire breaking out from among the houses in the congested lanes and women, children and the elderly crying and running for their life in the midst of slogans of ‘kill them’ by the violent mob which was brought from outside our area.”

The big tyre market, owned by members of the community, on the main road of Gokulpuri adjascent to Shiv Vihar has been completely burn causing a loss of crores of rupees.

The burnt Gokulpuri tyre market

Shiv Kumar Arora, whose general store in Brajpuri area which is adjascent to Mustafabad was set on fire by a mob, wants to know ”who has benefited from this madness. This senseless violence has taken a toll on all. ”

The same was the reaction from the people of his community in Bhagirathi Vihar where Rohit’s shop and a clinic run by another person of the community was gutted in the arson.

So many precious lives were lost from both sides, but mostly of the people belonging to the minority community in the violence the like of which Delhi has never seen, except in 1984 anti-Sikh attacks. Though official figures is only 53, many more people have died, according to unconfirmed reports.

The visit also revealed inadequacy of relief operations as compared to the magnitude of the distruction that has taken place. In the lanes of Shiv Vihar, one can find men and women sitting at the broken door of their burnt houses looking at their broken and burnt utensils and other household things with tearful eyes. Though, one could find now government functionaries moving around for verification of losses and distributing some cash as immediate relief, but the massive loss that the Muslims have suffered in the area would take decades to be compensated.

—India News Stream