New Delhi: Each person appears to be armed in north-east Delhi. Each person is ready to protect his house, family and community.
Men, women, youth and even children are armed with iron and wooden rods, swords, country-made pistols, iron spatulas, iron chains attached with a heavy metal objects, bats and petrol bombs.
The hotspots are Maujpur, Babarpur, Jafrabad and Kardampuri in a radius of about 4 km.
"The houses -- around 1.5 lakh of them -- are located in small lanes and by-lanes," said a police officer. "Nothing is normal in these areas. We have to save ourselves," said a man in a group sitting outside their house in Jafrabad.
Most of the injured have sustained bullet injuries. Several rounds were fired by rioters and many people were injured, said a police officer. The policemen were not spared either. Fearing rioters will torch police stations, Jafrabad and Welcome police stations locked their doors from inside.
Often, the police resorted to lathi-charge and burst tear-gas shells to save themselves. There were times when ambulances were not allowed to reach the rioting site, where injured were lying in a pool of blood. More than a dozen shops were gutted.
In the first half of the day, rioting was between two groups living in Maujpur and Kardampuri. Hundreds of bullets were fired from Kardampuri area and, in retaliation, people living in Maujpur fired petrol bombs. Mostly affect were policemen standing between the rioters. Journalists were attacked when they tried to take videos and pictures.
