IV

DSP Mehra Lynched. 

Remember?

I am drawing an allusion. On the one hand there is DSP Mehra Lynching case. On the other , the 1989 Bhagalpur riots .

There is nothing common in the two. Yet an allusion is expedient, to appraise the role of different contributing segments.

If one can recreate the picture of the scene of occurrence when policemen had discovered the DSP reduced to ashes, loaded police rifles with fingers ready on the trigger got trained against the unlawful assembly around that showed no signs of remorse. 

It deeply offended the policemen that despite their enough strength to avenge DSP's brutal assassination, the Police Superintendent was not ordering to open fire at the recalcitrant assembly around that had the audacity to refuse to disperse and rather to shout affront slogans , expecting the police to flee, rather than to go back. 

Had Anil Sinha given up the restraint he himself exercised and literally begged the cops to exercise, the scene would have transformed into a riot, between the police and the agitating weavers , mostly the minorities. It is this restraint that the policemen despised in the days that followed, which led to a virtual police revolt which too was very intelligently contained by Anil Sinha.

Nevertheless, one question remains unanswered yet.

What is there to draw an allusion between the DSP lynching case and the 1989 Bhagalpur Riots? 

The answer follows hereafter.

V

DSP Mehra Lynching

And 

1989 Bhagalpur riots

Drawing an allusion 

Police Superintendent Anil Sinha's apt handing caused the DSP lynching case to be registered as a heinous criminal event, besides abating its precipitation into any communal tangle, far less any communal riot. Now this very event may be recreated on the mental screen in the manner, the October 24 episode happened, from the point of view of its handling and official stand aided by the media.

On that fateful day, there are two P.Os (Places of Occurrence), one being the main road on which the Muslim School situates. The other is some furlongs away, I.e the Tatarpur Chawk.

The Ramshila Procession was on this route and was to pass through these two points, onward to the Gaushala in the heart of the city.

But the procession was interdicted, as bombs  were lobbed from inside the Muslim School. The procession was dispersed and there stood a large police force with two dejected district heads, S.P Dwivedi with District Magistrate Arun Jha. 

For an objective appreciation and evaluation , take a pause and notice the case as being akin to the DSP assassination case, notwithstanding the latter one being worse but the former otherwise comparably far worse if communal sentiments begin to take precedence over administrative  skill, which Anil Sinha had declined to do despite venomous calling of names for what the policemen perceived as symptoms attending a nincompoop police administrator. Dwivedi was no nincompoop of the definition which over enthusiasts among the enraged losing rationality often give.

It was this grotesque difference that caused the said administrative heads to refuse to either return or to prevent the retreating members of the procession in utter rage , from turning violent. 

The focus got distracted elsewhere, on Tatarpur Chawk, then perceived as if the same was an alien bastion to be captured.

The police contingent was having similar mindset as its counterparts had when they had discovered DSP Mehra reduced into ashes. So all were game. It took then a little less than an hour to reorganise and then to march ahead towards Tatarpur Chawk, with all preparedness to conquer the the "lost" ground by , by, by,  ....    well no body knew. Obviously, when rage overtakes reason, reason is dislodged by , ' come what may'- attitude. 

The District Heads thus moved on, fully powered with the will and strength to accomplish a mission that would redeem just failed mission in which, as though, the procession had stuck up in a Hyder pass.

Muslim residents who were witnessing the scene from their roof tops were perceived by the marching contingent as a hostile army to be battled against  and vice versa. It didn't strike the administrative prudence of the district heads that the situation required to be defused, rather than lit up into a wild fire. Even before good sense could dawn up either, fresh explosions started. The DM and SP took shelter in a Muslim family besides the mosque and so did the SP. the battle was over even before it could begin. The police force had run belter shelter, either untrained or unprepared to endure such deafening explosions. 

It took some time for the smoke screen created all around, to clear. When visibility was restored, it seemed to the SP that the DM had been kidnapped in Bollywood film style, but soon his safe shelter in the house besides the mosque gave all a sigh of relief. 

The whole contingent retreated . But angered by its defeat at the battle on two successive fronts, the case which the police instituted said in clear terms that some 500 Muslims of Tatarpur had waged communal riot. That was not all. This alarming message in such clear terms as transmitted to each and every police station of the district, thereby transmitting an intrinsic message that licensed reprisal . That explains  how and why the a blaze turned into a holocaust, in contrast to that which DSP Mehra case failed turn into, courtesy the then SP Anil Sinha who is now CBI Chief.