The Gujarat police might well give themselves a pat on the back for ‘‘controlling’’ mobs in Chandola last week but the facts seem to tell a different story.The official police release says the cops opened fire after two groups clashed. Surprisingly, all the dead and injured were members of one community. No policeman was even injured.‘‘They killed innocent people in Gomtipur too. But there at least there was the provocation of a constable having been killed by a mob. Who provoked them here? Why did they open fire at us?’’ asked 56-year-old Sheikh Mustafa Mohammed, a resident of Chandola, while tending to the injured at V.S. Hospital. Sheikh saw a larger conspiracy in the entire episode. ‘‘There are some who want us to leave this area as they want to acquire our land,’’ he said.Residents said explosions made them think they were under attack and they started hurling stones towards the source of the sound. The police, they claimed, then opened fire.Naziabibi, a mother of seven whose right thigh bone was fractured after she was reportedly hit with the butt of a .303 rifle, said: ‘‘I was breast-feeding my 10-month-old child when a policeman entered my house and hit me with a gun.’’Speaking in Hindi and Bengali, she added: ‘‘Do you think I would have joined the mob leaving my seven children alone in the house? I care more for them than anything else in the world.’’ Shirinabibi, a widow who received a bullet injury on her right thigh, said: ‘‘I went out of the house to console my neighbour as her husband had just been hit by a bullet. And just as I went out of the house, I felt as if I had been hit by a sharp stone. I ran back inside the house and found that I was bleeding profusely.’’ Among the injured was 15-year-old Dala Sheikh who was hit by a shrapnel. The boy said he was at his doorstep when people gathered after the explosions. ‘‘I was frightened to step out. Just then the police came. I saw them open fire at the fleeing men,’’ he alleged. Assistant Commissioner of Police (J Division) R.D. Odedra denied the charges. ‘‘It is human nature not to accept one’s mistakes. People will say what they want to. After all, policemen have a responsibility and there is no reason to take such action on women and children.’’
