In the wake of the worst episode of sectarian violence in the Indian capital in decades, fear and suspicion have gripped Delhi’s residents, many of whom are too afraid to return to their homes they fled even as they stare at an uncertain future.
India’s principal city has brought into sharp focus the conflict between two religious groups, among the deepest fault lines in Indian society, sullying the image of a country that prides itself on being a tolerant, secular nation with diversity as its strength.
Telltale signs of the unprecedented rioting still remain: The acrid smell of smoke, hundreds of burnt vehicles, shattered glass from shops, and broken bricks and stones line long stretches of roads.
What had began as small clashes between opponents and backers of a controversial citizenship law last week quickly spiralled into full-blown riots between two religious groups.
The deadly violence swept through the Chand Bagh, Khajuri Khas, Maujpur, Shiv Vihar, Mustafabad, Jaffrabad and Bhajanpura localities. Many are mixed neighbourhoods where the two lived side by side: These working-class neighbourhoods on the city’s fringes, which are usually busy and teeming with people, have turned into ghost towns. Shiv Vihar and Mustafabad were among the worst-hit areas, where mobs rioted with impunity as police appeared to look the other way. At least 500 people who fled to nearby Indira Vihar are cramped in two huge halls arranged as a makeshift
shelter by local residents.
As the bloodthirsty mobs reached their neighbourhood after midnight, 70-year-old Noor Mohammad and his wife Ramzano Begum hid with their family in a toilet of a vacant home nearby until they were taken to safety by paramilitary troopers in the wee hours of last Tuesday.
“I have never seen such violence here in my life,” Mohammad says. “We could hear heavy stone-pelting outside, loud banging of rods on doors and cries of slogans. We died every minute that night.”
Mohammad Tanveer also made it to the shelter with his wife and a 10-day-old baby. He locked up his home, shut off all lights and spent two days in darkness.
“I was fortunate that my home did not have a door nameplate, else the house would have been vandalized too.”
“All we want is for peace to be restored so we can go home. But some who went back, have been threatened not to come there again. We are looking at an uncertain future.”
Both the residents of the area blame local politicians for instigating and having links with the bloodshed. They claim “outsiders” and criminals were used to perpetrate the violence. — dpa
Siddhartha Kumar
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