When the going gets tough, the tough gets going – or so says an old cliché.
But when the twin blasts rocked Dilsukhnagar and spread waves of shock and panic, undeterred local youth stood ground and formed the first line of rescue operations.
Armed with sticks, the youth assisted the police officials in shifting the bodies and injured persons, helped in cordoning off the blast sites and tried to bring the situation under control before additional police forces could be rushed in.
“The area got engulfed in pitch darkness when the bomb went off. The commotion created by flames and dismembered bodies was such that most of us could not gather our wits to formulate a response,” Sadanand, owner of a shop in the neighbourhood recounts. It was the youth from numerous hostels in the vicinities who poured out to extend their help, he adds.
The local Police Inspector came to the spot within three minutes and first ambulance rushed to the spot soon after that, but it was few large-hearted people who came forward to douse the flames and plunge into the rescue operations, K. Arun Kishore, another shopkeeper recounts. Once the rescue operations picked up, more people started trickling in, he says, adding that soon it became difficult to control people who started trampling the area.
The injured were rushed to the nearest private hospitals and those who received serious injuries were shifted to bigger hospitals like Care, Omni and Yashoda. “We received about 30 victims on Thursday, most were treated as out-patients or were sent to other hospitals,” Dr. Santosh Kumar from Sai Ram Speciality Hospital says. The injured were brought to the hospital by the neighbourhood youth, he maintains.
A major helping hand was also extended by the local political party cadres. “Our people swung into action immediately and we mobilised our cadre within minutes,” local TDP representative E. Lokendra Nath claims. The situation was similar at the first bomb blast site near 72 number bus-stop. It was initially dark as all bulbs in the area got fused and it was difficult to make out anything, Abdul Kotadiya owner of Dress Code, the store in front of which the bomb went off, says. “The glass panes were shattered, bulbs gone, ears ringing with the after effects of the blasts. The scene was macabre and we did not know what to do. But soon youngsters poured in and started helping the injured,” he recounts.
