Violence brings Agra to a halt-India-The Times of India

AGRA: Panic-stricken residents of Agra stayed indoors as district officials imposed a curfew in many areas and schools and colleges were ordered shut for the next three days after a six hour battle between people of two communities.

All major markets were shuttered and even the gates of the Taj were slammed shut for a while in the afternoon until the administration realised that sending shock waves through tourists would transmit a wrong message and ordered the normal viewing hours at the marble marvel restored.

That the accident victims happened to be relatives of local BSP MLA Zulfikar Ahmed Bhutto may have made matters worse, with the constabulary waiting for clear word from the top to initiate action. However, district magistrate Mukesh Meshram attributed the spiralling of the anger of a vengeful mob into a communal situation to the police being caught off guard.

"Firing is not the solution as it complicates matters. We tried to maintain calm till reinforcements arrived and then quickly restored normalcy," he said, claiming that the worst was over and peace was at hand. CM Mayawati, into her fourth month in office, was rattled enough to press DGP Vikram Singh and home secretary Mahesh Gupta to reach Agra and prevent the situation from snowballing into political fodder for her Samajwadi Party rivals, ready to take up minority cudgels. Her gambit to woo Muslims and upper-caste Hindus alike only seemed to make her fears palpable.

With only a narrow street to separate the two communities which inhabit MG Road, the rioters soon set upon each other and the levels of retaliation quickly rose. A horribly outnumbered police force was reduced to being helpless bystanders. Cold-drink bottles, looted from nearby shops, were used as missiles, while stones, bricks and tiles were prised from sidewalks and even the boundary walls for use as ammunition in the confrontation which lasted from 4 am to about 10 am. Two shoe factories were gutted in the mob frenzy.

Though violence was contained to a 1.5-km stretch from Dhakran to Nai ki Mandi, the city was staring at an unprecedented communal conflagration, given that the affected areas represent a heavily mixed population of the two religious groups. Three shrines were targeted by rioters and even cops were injured in incessant stone and bottle pelting. At one point, DM Meshram had to hide in a police station to save his life.

An out-of-its-wits administration took the entire forenoon with reinforcements from Mathura and neighbouring towns and imposition of curfew in six police stations to quell the violence. Or, as a local said, "Both the groups had fought a full-scale war for six hours and retreated on their own, possibly weary." Late in the evening, officials had their fingers crossed, keeping a close watch on any revival of violence as funeral preparations were being made.

subodh.ghildiyal@timesgroup.com
neha.lalchandani@timesgroup.com