Riots in Dadri

NK SINGH

Almost a month has passed since the small township (population, 14,000) of Dadri, about 37 km. from Delhi, witnessed its first-ever communal flare-up. Residents called it "a bad dream." A butcher's reported love of beef was followed by large-scale arson, looting and rioting on September 21. 

Forty-seven houses were razed to the ground and 42 shops were looted belonging to Muslims- within two hours that day, resulting in an estimated loss of around Rs. 3.5 lakhs. About 40 persons, including some prominent citizens, municipal councillors and students have already been taken into custody, and 96 others are on the list of wanted persons.

But Dadri still simmers with trouble. The reasons: the Congress (O) and the Jana Sangh have become active in the riot-torn Dadri waters and if the present state of affairs continues unabetted, it will create quite a problem for the law and order authorities. 

The incident was given a political colour on September 25 when the arrest of some prominent citizens, most of them belonging to the Organisation Congress, was followed by hartal by shopkeepers. 

On September 28, in a specially erected shamiana on G.T. Road (which crosses right through the middle of the town), seven persons began a relay hunger strike demanding the release of arrested persons, suspension of the Station House Officer and a judicial inquiry into the alleged police atrocities (not the riot!) committed during the follow-up raids to arrest wanted persons. 

They were led by two Syndicate leaders. Ravi Gautam, a municipal councillor and Mr Mohinder Singh Bhati, President of the local Taxi Operators Union were wanted by the Police in connection with rioting but had gone underground. To make matters more complicated, about 100 persons belonging to the Jatav (Harijan) community brought out a silent procession the same evening in violation of the prohibitory orders. 

They complained about alleged police excesses. The next day, the prohibitory order was again violated by a batch of 11 residents who marched in a procession to protest against the "official high-handedness."

The Jana Sangh and its students' wing, Vidyarthi Parishad utilised the occasion for rumour-mongering. Their campaign was that the local police had entered into a conspiracy with the local Muslims many of whom were, of course, Pakistani agents to provoke the Hindus and incite them to violence SO that they could be butchered by the combined forces of the police and the Muslims! 

Two leaflets were distributed to this effect on October 1 one by the Jana Sangh and the other by one Sheoraj Singh, President of the Vidyarthi Parishad. 

While the one issued officially by the J.S. was comparatively less blatant in its contents, the Vidyarthi Parishad handbill, a cyclostyled sheet, alleged that the Station House Officer of Dadri, a Hindu, had been paid Rs. 1,900/- by the Muslims and that the Muslims had themselves set fire to their houses and shops to claim liberal compensation from the Government!

As a result, the situation continues to be tense. All schools and colleges have been closed for an indefinite period. Heavy police patrolling, started in the wake of the riot, continues. Several residents have sent their women and children to live with relatives in nearby villages.

 

The Incident 

Dadri, or for that matter the entire district of Bulandshahr, had 

never witnessed communal riots. The town is inhabited by a mixed population of Muslims and Hindus with a ratio of one and three.

As it happened, in the morning of September 21 (8.30 a.m.) a prominent local doctor, Khali-ur-Rahman heard a rumour about beef being sold at a shop. He quickly informed the Vice-Chairman of the Town Area Committee, Mr. Aflatoon Khan Chisti and they, together with Choudhary Bir Singh, filed an FIR with the local police, around 10.00 a.m. 

Two sub-inspectors and six policemen were sent to the butcher's shop and the beef stock was seized. It was brought on a cycle rickshaw to the police station in full view of the people. The rickshaw passed through almost the entire town escorted by eight policemen and a score of others accompanying them. Having ascertained that the seized meat was beef, the butcher was arrested under the Anti-Cow Slaughter Act.

The rumour-mongers got busy. "He has been released," the whisper went around. Yet, nothing happened. It was the unimaginative act of the police which provided. opportunity to the mischief mongers.

The police transported the remains of the carcass in a rickshaw (according to people, it was not covered but the police say it was fully covered) to a field opposite the Mehr Bhoj College for disposal. 

It remains a mystery why the police decided to bury the beef near the college and that too during the college recess (12.30 p.m.). Noticing the digging activity, a few students came out of their college and gathered near the policemen. 

They brought the rickshaw carrying the beef inside the college premises. Meanwhile, they heard rumours that the police had released the butcher, that some (Hindu) students were forcibly confined in the town's mosque and that two Hindus had been killed.

Within minutes, the students, joined by other students from two intermediate colleges in the township, became an inflamed mob. The 500-strong crowd marched into the towns with lathis and brick-bats. They attacked the eight-odd policemen who had reached the spot by then and fanned into the township.

Miscreants joined the students. The mob broke open the doors of shops that had been hurriedly closed by their owners, pulled out goods from inside and made a bonfire of them in various places. In the meantime, several splinters of the mob had spread into the maze of lanes and bylanes forming the residential area of Dadri. 

These splinters broke open. doors of houses and tried to set them on fire. A section of the mob stormed into the mosque, smashed an amplifier inside and burnt some carpets partially. Forty-seven houses and 42 shops were partly damaged and three shops were completely gutted. Among these were a small ice cream factory, a flour mill and cloth and fruit shops.

The town's police force, consisting of three sub-inspectors, a head constable and 18 constables proved inadequate to meet the emergency. The helpless policemen frantically telephoned the district headquarters in Bulandshahr, 22 miles away, for reinforcements.

At 2:30 p.m., nearly two hours after the violence began, reinforcements arrived from Bulandshahr and Meerut. The mob hastily retreated and all was 'quiet', thereafter. Acting quickly, the police quelled the violent mob, arresting 19 (10 of them students) in the process. 

In Gautampuri mohalla the police arrived just in time to save 10 children who had been shut up inside a house (owner, Mohammad Kaiwa) before setting it aflame. The law and order situation was, thus, brought under control within 20 minutes. 

But since no fire fighting facilities worth the name exist in the entire Bulandshahr district, not much could be done to save the burning houses. An earlier SOS to Ghaziabad produced a single fire engine which, however, was of no use since the mohalla lanes were too narrow for their entrance.

A few Points

A few points should be considered in this regard :

*Although the official circles are trying to give an impression that the trouble was 'an incidental spark of communal frenzy', facts give a different version. A month before the incident some 60 residents of the Nai Abadi area and Maulvi Jameelur Rehman, Pesh Imam of the local Jama Masjid, had lodged a complaint with the police and the Chairman of the Town Area Committee against violation of the Anti-Cow Slaughter Act by the same butcher.

*A member of the Town Area Committee belonging to the Syndicate and another leading worker of the same party were reportedly leading the mob during the riot. This particular Syndicate worker (he has been arrested since) himself indulged in arson and provided petrol for this purpose, people of Dadri alleged.

*Not a single student was to be seen in the bazaar and Gautimpuri area violence. 

*The Station House Officer left for Bulandshahr just after the arrest of the butcher. Even while in the district headquarters he failed to inform the district authorities of the morning's incident. He returned to Dadri only late in the evening.

*Though the cow slaughter incident had taken place at 10 a.m. and the mood of the people had become ugly soon after, the district authorities were contacted only at 2.15 p.m. due to "disturbance in phone-line."

*When the trouble started there were just six men inside the police station to face the mob. Most of the three S.I.S. a head constable and 18 constables were away on their beat at that time.

Secular Democracy 

November 1972