NAVI MUMBAI: A day after a stone-pelting mob ran amok unchallenged by the law enforcement agencies for over an hour, residents of the Teen Taaki area in Koparkhairane are still in shock. Tension was high even on Thursday, a day after a bandh called by the Marathi Kranti Morcha, leading to schools in the area remaining shut.
“It was a terrifying Wednesday evening,” said Aslam Mulani, resident of the Tridal Ex-Servicemen’s Cooperative Housing Society. The locality witnessed the mob systematically target vehicles, shops, restaurants and even housing societies without any resistance. The attack, the worst in Mumbai and its satellite cities during the bandh, is all the more shocking since the area targeted is less than a kilometre from the Koparkhairane police station.
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Police may have been ordered by the government to go easy on these protestors bearing in mind the political sensitivities around the agitation. But that still does not absolve the law and order machinery for its slow-footed and deficient response to the vandalism and arson perpetrated during the stir. What prevented officials from deploying more personnel to protect public property, especially in areas where the violence continued even after the Maratha Morcha organisers called off the bandh.
“I personally made several calls to the police emergency number 100 and also to various local police officials to help us. All we got was that they were busy at the D’Mart junction (about a kilometre from Tridal) of Koparkhairane,” said Mulani.
The group of over 50 men carrying stones poured down the main road around 6.30pm, over three hours after the bandh had been called off in Mumbai amid reports of violence. “Many had masked their faces and were randomly attacking buildings and vehicles. They made three rounds along the main road and a few lanes to wreak damage,’’ said Babu Shetty, one of the owners of Spices Restaurant, whose glass windows were shattered. “We had earlier seen such violence only in J&K; now it is happening in ‘KK’ (Koparkhairane) as well,” Shetty added dryly.
The mob dispersed on its own around an hour later, indicating the hooligans were working to a plan. The residents said the police came well after they had gone, to assess the damage. They are irked with the police, who, they said, failed miserably to control the mob. Now, they are demanding the miscreants be identified from videos and CCTV footage, arrested and booked under stringent laws.
Sixty-five-year-old Noorjehan Shaikh, cowering in the living room of her first-floor flat at Tridal society as the mob rampaged, recalled that a stone hit their window with a thud. “My husband, Dawood Shaikh, who is bedridden, was alarmed. We had locked our building gate, but the mob was trying to break into our complex. They were throwing stones. Everybody was very worried. I was extremely tense because of my husband’s condition and felt helpless."
Sitting Shiv Sena corporator Shivram Patil too faced the mob’s brunt. His ground-floor office was badly damaged. “Five of my vehicles have been damaged. In the entire area, I feel more than 80-90 cars have been damaged. A local youth standing outside my office was hit on the head with a stone and had to be rushed to hospital," said Patil. He received 10 stitches.
Residents across the satellite city were united in their anger that a handful of miscreants had been allowed to hold Navi Mumbai to ransom. “Innocent people were at the receiving end for no fault of theirs. Public property was damaged by hooligans… The perpetrators should be brought to book,” said activist Santush Patil.
Srinivas Shetty, an Airoli resident, missed his flight to Hyderabad on Wednesday. “I missed the flight, and the rasta roko was led by some known faces, like former corporators. They should be punished,” he said.
(
With inputs from B B Nayak)
