National

Police took sides with the mob, say Rabodi residents

THANE (Maharashtra): Fehmida Bangi stands in the middle of a charred room and points to the blackened contents of a steel cupboard. “Those were our new clothes for Id. There’s nothing left now,” she says, with tears in eyes. All books of her daughter Nida, studying in Standard XII, were burnt in Monday’s communal clash at Rabodi here.

The tension was palpable as one entered Rabodi. At the entrance is the police station and Fehmida’s one-room tenement is just behind it. “We thought we were secure having the police so close but it was they who kicked open the door of the house and burnt everything,” she said.

Kais Bangi, who also lives here, said everyone had to run away to save their lives. He points to a cooking gas cylinder and a tube, which was cut. “The police and the mob used the LPG to burn our house down at 1 a.m. We lost all our money too,” he said, taking out burnt currency notes from the cupboard.

In the blackened trunks, one can still see the labels of the new Id clothes, now half-burnt. Shabana Bangi fishes out some unbroken bangles bought for her 12-year-old daughter. “We had bought clothes to match these but now she has really nothing to wear,” the woman cried.

The roads were littered with broken glass and there was the smell of smoke everywhere. Burnt cars, autorickshaws and motorbikes were lying all over the place. Many shops were completely gutted.

The wooden door of Hanifa Bape’s house has a hole caused by a bullet. “I was closing the door when I heard commotion and suddenly I felt a stinging sensation past my ear. The bullet hit the wall above the bed and we found it later on the floor,” said Hanifa. Her neighbour Bashir Bape, a former corporator from the area, has put the bullet in a small box to show to the police. There are vehicles with bullet holes too.

Residents say the police fired on them instead of on the mob, which was attacking the area.

The clash started over a trivial dispute. There was a difference of opinion over where the archway to a Navratri pandal should be installed. The Navshakti Mahila Mandal, which has been celebrating the festival for the past 12 years, always built an archway at one particular place to which Muslims objected. Last year, there was an agreement that the arch would be put up a little further down from where it was usually located. However, this year things reached a crisis point.

On Monday night, when Rizwan Mulla saw a mob throwing stones, he went to the police to seek their help. “I was shot in the right thigh and can’t walk properly,” he said.

People complained that the police encouraged the rioting and even incited the mob. Apart from houses, several shops in the area were burnt. A shocked Paresh Gogri said: “My shops sold stationery and I have lost Rs. 17 lakh to 18 lakh.”

Ashok Thakkar says 12-14 shops have been burnt. “They took out their anger on us.”

Both communities blamed each other for the incident. Sitting near the pandal, Sangita Patil of the Navshakti Mahila Mandal asks “Why the objection to the archway? We need a pravesh dwar [an entrance gate], otherwise how can we install the Devi in the pandal? They wanted us to remove the saffron flag on the gate. Why should we?”

The celebrations are muted, there is no music playing, no festive light.

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