“When we were born here, grew up here, why would we want anything bad to happen here?,” said 55-year-old Wasima, a resident of north-east Delhi’s Seelampur.
These were, however, not the only questions on the minds of scores of local women like her continuing with their two-month-old peaceful demonstration against the amended Citizenship Act here on Thursday.
Across the road from the Hindu-dominated locality of Welcome and a few hundred metres from the crossing where BJP leader Kapil Mishra sought to issue a three-day ultimatum to the Delhi police to clear sit-in protesters like her from the main road last Sunday, questions regarding delayed police deployment and the role of “instigators from outside” dominated the discussion.
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Peace, she said, had returned to the area after “several tense nights”, on Wednesday evening. What remained to be seen, however, was how long it would last.
“Last night there was some peace. [Union Home Minister] Amit Shah did exactly what he did in Gujarat,” she alleged.
“Yes, there were people from here, on both sides, who played a role in the clashes, but there were people from outside who came and instigated them into doing so,” she claimed.
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Mr. Mishra, alleged another female resident who asked not to be named, “called people from outside.”
“They [the rioters] came from Uttar Pradesh with sacks of bricks and weapons. People from outside came with weapons. There was no police deployment at that time and calls made to the police control room by residents were answered with phrases like ‘This is the freedom that you wanted’,” she alleged. “As early as this morning, panic-stricken people were calling the PCR but were declined any help and were given similar answers. On the other hand, we got videos on WhatsApp showing the police helping outsiders gather bricks to pelt at our homes,” she alleged further.