By Kashif-ul-huda, TwoCircles.net
The night of August 28th and 29th was celebrated as Shab-e-Barat (night of emancipation) by Muslims of the city of Agra. On Shab-e-Barat, Muslims spend the whole night in worship, visiting graves and praying for the dead.
Four youths who were visiting graveyards on this same night and masjids were mowed down by a speeding truck just before fajr (dawn prayer). Four were killed at Nalband Chauraha on Mahatama Gandhi Road which is the lifeline for Agra City. This road is closed to heavy traffic during day time. Trucks are only allowed here from 11PM to 4AM going and coming from Gwalior.
Being a night of special significance for Muslims, the roads were full of youth. Seeing four of their brothers being hit by truck was a shock for them. The truck that hit the boys stopped at a distance, and sensing trouble the driver ran away. The youths were pulled out from underneath the truck and rushed to nearby hospitals.
Traffic stopped on the road and trucks started piling up. People, in the masjid or waking up to go to the masjid gathered to see what happened. In the anger and confusion someone shouted “burn the trucks.” Within half an hour of the accident, 12 trucks were torched.
2 Police vehicles arrived at about 5AM, when the trucks were already burning. Police apparently manhandled some youth which made the mob angrier. Seeing the growing mob and their anger, police quickly made their escape so as to gather a larger force.
Police returned soon after but this time instead of coming from the Muslim locality area they came from the opposite end. This area has houses belonging to Jatav, a community belonging to Scheduled Caste. Muslim youths turned their anger from the trucks to the police and started throwing rocks at them which also hit Jatav houses. The police responded by firing in the air and lobbing teargas shells. The Jatavs, joined in and responded by throwing rocks back at the Muslims.
The incident which started about an hour ago with an unfortunate accident was slowly turning into a Hindu-Muslim riot. Police did not realize the folly of coming from the opposite side and instead of working with the community to calm the anger took it as an incident to control by force. They made no attempt to stop the Jatavs from throwing rocks, who were on the police side giving further credence to Muslims that the police were working with the Hindus to attack them.
One more Muslim youth died when he was hit by a rock. Several serious injuries to many people including few policemen were reported.
In the morning around 8:30am, DIG of Police came and assessed the situation. He had his men stop the stone throwing by the Jatavs and then the Muslim youths were calmed down.
Curfew was clamped in Loha Mandi, Naik ki Mandi, Mantola, Rakabgand, Tajgand, and Sadar.
An unfortunate accident could have easily turned into a communal riot had it not been for the DIG of Agra Police, Kamal Saksena. While a number of policemen used bad judgment that aggravated the situation, Vikram Singh quickly sensed the situation and corrected the mistakes made by his juniors. 13 policemen were suspended for negligence while on duty.
Among the policemen suspended was the Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) of Agra, Rahul Yadavendra. Yadavendra was held responsible for the failure to check the traffic on MG Road. Station Officer (SO) of Loha Mandi police station, Ranjit Singh Rana, head constable HP Sharma, and constables Surendra Singh and Pramod Kumar, were all placed under suspension for mishandling the situation.
This incident contained a series of unfortunate events that could have lead to many more deaths. It is sad that after four accident victims, one more youth had to die before the situation was brought under control. Police and citizenry should take note from this situation and see how things like this can be avoided in the future.
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[Agra resident Bakhtiyar Khan provided information for this report]