Both the groups were standing at two ends of road facing each other. In between them it was no man’s land. Some vehicles were parked on that road. And within a moment it started. Both the groups were pelting stones at each other. Later stones were accompanied by soda bottles. To make the matter worse petrol bombs came into the picture. 10-12 policemen were certainly not enough to handle the situation. One of them fired in air. For a moment everything came to rest. And it started all over again. This time one group started chasing other. That group destroyed the vehicles parked on the road by breaking its wind shields. Police intervened. But nothing helped. The other group came forward and ignited the already destroyed vehicles. Some of them broke into a laundry and set it on fire. In response to that the previous group set a bakery on fire. This was no less than a movie scene. I wish it could have been a movie scene.
This is the first hand account of things happened on 17th march 2009. It was kind of action replay of events which took place on 29th September 2008. I am talking about the riots which took place in rabodi area in Thane. All I could do was to watch these things happening right outside my colony with terrified eyes. The main gate was locked. Someone climbed the gate and threw a petrol bomb inside the compound. And I thought that’s it. Now the entire mob will barge into the colony and my mind couldn’t dare to imagine what would have followed. Luckily that ‘someone’ changed his mind and ran away.
These riots took place between so called hindu and muslim groups. But who had to pay for it? Answer is common man. Both the groups were fighting without any objective. All they had was a provocation by some political leaders. The reason I said that common man had to pay because I saw both the groups damaging the same vehicles without knowing if those vehicles belonged to hindus or muslims. One broke the windshields and then other group ignited them.
Now when I am looking at the same road, I can see it getting cleaned. There is hardly any vehicle passing on the same road. So things have settled down to some extent. But I wonder how long things will remain calm. With elections around the corner, picture may get uglier. Police will surely arrest few people but ‘political pressure’ will play its role and the culprits will be free very soon. That way neither politicians nor the culprits will have to lose anything. If anyone has to lose something then it’s the people like us who will lose peace of mind. If we decide to leave this area then our flats won’t have the same price now. So we’ll have to settle for lesser prices that way making it difficult to buy another house in a safer area. All I can see is tough times ahead…
