New Delhi/Feb,25: Death toll in the northeast Delhi violence climbed to nine on Tuesday, after GTB Hospital reported two more people wounded in communal clashes over the citizenship law.
Fresh violence broke out on Tuesday;the third day of the violence. Thick smoke billowed in the air and mobs roamed unchecked through the streets, pelting stones, vandalising shops and threatening locals.
As tension smouldered in the city’s northeast, rioters damaged two fire tenders in Gokulpuri and crowds raising incendiary slogans set on fire a bike in the epicentre of the trouble Maujpur.
Streets in many parts of the area were littered with stones, bricks and burnt tyres, mute testimony to the spiralling violence and bloodshed that took on a communal taint on Monday and injured about 150 people, including 48 police personnel.
With violence continuing unabated, Union Home Minister Amit Shah convened a meeting with Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Police chief Amulya Patnaik and others to address the situation.
The meeting resolved that workers of political parties should join hands to restore peace and peace committees should be reactivated in all localities.
In scenes not seen in the national capital for decades, frenzied groups, armed with sticks, stones and rods, were seen thrashing people on the road in Maujpur and also venting their ire on e-rickshaws and other vehicles. Many journalists were heckled and told to go back. Schools were shut and fearful residents stayed indoors as restless crowds roamed the streets, seemingly unmindful of prohibitory orders restricting the assembly of more than four people imposed by police on Monday.
Journalists covering the violence were attacked. Some of them took to social media to share their experience.
