: For at least 10 minutes after the blast in Old Delhi’s Pattewali Gali on Tuesday morning, Ramesh remained hidden in a safe corner of his office.
“The sound of the explosion was such that it is still impossible to believe it was caused by crackers. It sounded like a bomb blast. I feared there would be more blasts immediately, so I hid in a safe part of the shop,” said Ramesh, who works for a wholesale grains shop, the glass panes of which were shattered because of the impact of the blast. When he did emerge from the shop, all he could find was smoke and dust all around and panic-stricken people running around. “My first instinct was to help, but I did not know where to begin from. There was way too much damage in front of my eyes,” he recounted.
Stroke of luck
For scores of people working or living in the Pattewali Gali, the explosion will remain etched in their memories for ever. “I was just metres away from the place where the blast occurred. But for my luck, I could well be dead,” said Sangram, another employee in the area.
A CCTV footage showed people running helter-skelter immediately after the blast that left the street engulfed in dark clouds of smoke.
Locals said the narrow street was jam-packed throughout the day and the casualty could potentially have been higher had the blast occurred even a few minutes later. Only a few shops had opened at that time, thus greatly reducing the damages. Ram Chandra Gupta, a local trader, said he noticed two persons lying injured in a shop close to his moments after the blast.
Since the blast occurred next to a mosque, initially there were rumours that a particular community was trying to provoke the other. However, religious leaders from both the communities stood arms-in-arms to dispel any rumour-mongering.
