Delhi, again

Bhajanpura and Chand Bagh face each other across a thoroughfare running through the northeastern part of New Delhi. Neighbourhoods that lived happily together for years are now divided by far more than a road. Faith in the ability of politicians and the police to contain the unrest wears thin, as residents try to understand how a peaceful part became a battleground virtually overnight

Aditi Tandon in New Delhi

Torched homes, stone-littered roads, broken hearts — the story of the once peaceful northeast Delhi will never be the same again. Road after road, lane after lane in this long, steady neighbourhood now stand testimony to a shocking trail of hate as people count their losses, wondering what the near and distant futures would look like.

Few nurture hope of normalcy as distrust takes the place of trust and the Delhi riot toll mounts by the day.

Little had people known that what started as a skirmish between anti and pro Citizenship (Amendment) Act demonstrators on Sunday would rage into a communal fire that would consume Hindus and Muslims, leaving in its wake only smithereens of the past.

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“These areas will never look the same again. The situation may get normalised but the trust that has been lost will never be restored, never,” says 35-year-old Gulshan Chauhan, who lives yards from where the mutilated body of his friend Ankit Sharma, an Intelligence Bureau staffer, was recovered this week.

Ankit had stepped out of his home at the time of the raging riots to see if he could help. A day later, his body was extricated from a drain in Chand Bagh close to the Sharma household.

Ever since the police booked AAP councillor Tahir Hussain for Ankit’s murder, the neighbourhood has been in shock.

“We never knew we had such elements among us. We saw at least 500 people on the terrace of Hussain’s building the other day. They hurled petrol bombs and stones. It was pre-planned,” says Dalip Singh Gehlot, who is part of the committee the residents have formed to guard the streets at night.

Muslims of Chand Bagh have a different version of events as claims and counter-claims shroud the truth. They say Hussain had left the building a day prior to arson and “unknown people” captured his complex. The fact that many Muslims were killed in Chand Bagh also points to the presence of outsiders at the scenes of mayhem with part local collaboration, feel residents.

“These had to be outsiders. These cannot be our own people. We have lived here for years in harmony. Places of Muslim worship have been destroyed, something that has never happened in the past. Our young boys have been shot dead. The culprits must be booked,” says 76-year-old Haji Hussain of Chand Bagh, where stories of hope also surface amid stories of hate.

Local Muslims of the area prevented the shop of their Hindu neighbour from being torched when the mobs came for it on February 25. “We were away that day but I returned on Friday to find out that my Muslim friends had saved my shop. This is our culture. We are peace-loving people. From the scale of stone-pelting in our area, anyone can gauge that the attack was planned and bags full of stones brought in,” says Sandeep Jain, who runs Jain General Store close to where Ankit Sharma was murdered.

Unmasking the guilty

Victim after victim of the Delhi riots claims the role of unknown masked men in the killing, looting and torching of swathes of land.

Malika, the wife of 35-year-old Musharraf, a daily-wager from Bhagirathi Vihar, says attackers wore helmets and chanted incendiary slogans. “When we heard of rioting mobs coming for us, we locked the access to our house. After failing to break in, the rioters took the rear entry to our building. We could not identify anyone as they wore helmets and carried rods and sticks. They pulled my husband out of the box bed where he was hiding and killed him. They looked like outsiders but someone from our street must have told them that our house had a rear entry. An outsider would not know that,” says Malika, now left with four children, a torched house and a dark future.

At Shiv Vihar, where the first deaths were reported including of the young Rahul Solanki, the trust deficit runs deep. Preliminary reports suggest maximum damage to commercial establishments around this area.

Sunil Kumar, who has lived here for 30 years, says, “There are two schools here — one owned by a Muslim and another by a Hindu. Why has the damage only been done to the one a Hindu owned? See for yourself.”

Nothing is left of DRP School in Shiv Vihar which Kumar points to. It’s rubble. The adjacent building — Rajdhani Public School — escaped with lesser damage, provoking locals to ask if the attacks were pre-planned.

Some distance from where the schools stand, Muslims speak of “Jai Shri Ram” chanting crowds baying for their blood from Monday to Thursday until the paramilitary came.

“My friends Ashfaq and Shahban were killed by mobs that were chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’. They were returning from prayers,” says Dilshad Hussain, a local, citing severe damage to Muslim households.

With the residents of northeast Delhi reeling under mistrust spending sleepless nights guarding inner streets, the role of Delhi Police remains under scanner.

All violence-hit families complained of police apathy starting Sunday and said forces were invisible for two days while people died and properties were torched. “All calls to the control room went unanswered. Houses kept burning. Cylinders were being thrown at us, stones being pelted on roads. No help came,” says Nikki from Bhajanpura.

Gulshan Bano, who lost her father in the riots, also rued the absence of forces on the ground as the city burned.

“Tension had been building up since Sunday when BJP leader Kapil Mishra threatened the anti-CAA women protesters at Jaffarabad metro station. Everyone knows there was tension. Why did the police not pre-empt the situation?” asks Gulshan, blaming the government for failing to engage panic-stricken Muslims, who remain fearful of losing their homes on account of the CAA-National Register of Citizens combine.

Affected people say the situation in the riot zones normalised soon after the paramilitary forces took control mid-week. They remain anxious of the fact that the forces would ultimately leave.

“What will happen once the paramilitary forces leave? I have lost my son to this riot. I don’t want more people to die. The government must engage the protesters and assure them that they will not lose their residence and citizenship. People are in too much fear of the recent laws,” says Mahesh Prasad Tiwari, whose son Alok is among the dead in Delhi clashes.

Locals believe the ball is in the Centre’s court and hope help for rehabilitation and assurances for a secure future would come sooner than later. Without that, they fear, Delhi may remain a tinder box erupting every now and then.

The siege within

Arson, vandalism, looting, destruction of properties, killings, communal clashes — rioters had a free run in parts of the national capital. Like after 1984, 2002, riots anywhere, the scars will be difficult to heal. But amidst the atmosphere of distrust, hate and vengeance are countless accounts of amity and humanity. The people of Delhi, in the end, are the only hope for Delhi