Two days on, police yet to build sequence of events

Two days after largescale violence in Ghaziabad in which six people were killed, the police and administration officials are yet to build up a credible sequence of events that led to the mobilization of a mob over five hours.

Two days after largescale violence in Ghaziabad in which six people were killed, the police and administration officials are yet to build up a credible sequence of events that led to the mobilization of a mob over five hours.

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The Ghaziabad police, which have now admitted an intelligence failure, did not act to avoid the build up as it allowed miscreants gain valuable time to unleash violence.

SSP Prashant Kumar admitted that there was a "total intelligence failure" which led to build up and escalation. "We have suspended some officials and also recommended action against others. Our reinforcements could not arrive due to blockade of NH-24. Our first priority is to bring the situation to normal. We need more skills to tackle such situations and we will start working on them immediately," he said.

According to police complaint filed by Abdul Qadir on Friday, he saw a man shouting and throwing some papers out of a moving train at Adhyatmik Nagar halt near Dasna at around 1 pm on Friday. When he went to have a look, he discovered the pages from the holy book with abusive words and a mobile number written over it.

Soon, the news spread like wild fire.

Qadir and some local residents reached the Masuri police station at around 5.30 pm with the pages and demanded immediate identification of the mobile numbers. By this time, crowds outside the police station had swelled to thousands. Among them were some miscreants, who were armed with petrol-bombs, country-made weapons and meat cleavers.

The miscreants opened fire and also set afire dozens of police and public vehicles. The situation got worse due to a designated day for a huge weekly local market which is set up near the police station.

As the situation slipped out of control, senior police and administration officials trapped inside the police station ordered to open fire.