Two persons died and 53 people, 45 of them policemen, were injured as south Mumbai witnessed unbridled mob vandalism for about two hours after a section of participants in a rally by Muslim organisations went berserk. The mob torched one police van and one television channel’s vehicle besides damaging six other police vehicles, 49 BEST buses, a couple of other outdoor broadcasting vans and numerous privately owned vehicles.
The police opened fire after all other means to control the violence, including a lathi-charge and tear-gassing, failed. One of the casualties had suffered bullet injuries, and the other was crushed to death. Police commissioner Arup Patnaik said the cops had to fire five rounds to rein in the mob.
Before that, however, two of the island city’s arterial roads, DN Road and Mahapalika Marg, witnessed mob violence of a scale not seen in recent memory. Thousands from the rally, organised to focus attention on the violence against Muslims in Assam and Myanmar, spilled on to the streets, torching and damaging whatever they managed to lay their hands on. Several newspersons, including photographers were beaten up. Cops were singled out for specially violent treatment. Police have slapped sections relating to rioting, unlawful assembly and damaging public property on unnamed rioters. The administration sounded an alert in Mumbai as well as sensitive pockets in neighbouring regions like Thane and Bhiwandi.
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