July 18: A week after the police firing that killed 11 of its residents, the Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar is calm, but anger still simmers under the surface. For all the practical purposes, their victims have been passed off as rioters who deserved to die and the bewildered residents wonder if brushing your teeth, helping a fallen man or even leaving for work as usual in the morning constitutes a crime.

Although the city police have done their best to propagate the tanker theory to justify the killings, the survivors of that Black Friday come up with their own evidence that points to the fact that most of the killings took place not on the highway, where the rioters were supposed to be, but inside their own colony.

``We did not even hear the sounds of firing. But the bullets were whizzing past and blood was spurting from the bodies of those closest to the highway. So we knew something was wrong,'' says one school teacher, who was peeping from behind a Buddh Vihar and saw at least two persons killed across it.

One was a woman, Kausabai Pathare, who went to the aid of a fallen boy of 14. She received seven bullets in her chest for the effort, says her sister-in-law. Another was a young rickshaw driver who saw a Congress worker from the area, Sukhdev Kapadne, mowed down. He was in turn helping another boy lying inert on the main road and, says his wife Sonabai, had put up his hands when he was shot full blast at point blank range by the police. She wanted to run to his aid but was held back by her daughter.

The incidents were enough to persuade all the horrified watchers to take to their heels. Says one young woman, witness to the happenings, ``We were all still rubbing sleep out of our eyes. But it was obvious the police did not want to leave any witnesses, whoever helped got shot. And it was all over in 15 minutes.''

She points to a bullet mark in the wall which penetrated a general physician's clinic and came clean out on the other side. The clinic is at least 50 feet across the highway and facing away from the square where the statue of B R Ambedkar was desecrated. There are similar bullet penetrations throughout the Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar, some on the inside edge. Residents point to the exact spot where their boys died: between shanties, atop gutters, across places of worship. If there were any rioters, they say, they got scot free because most of those killed or injured were innocents. One woman was hit as she was lifting her six month baby from a cot in a narrow land leading to the highway.

Says the mother of Mangal Shivsharan, who saw the head of her 14-year-old son split open by a bullet, ``He ran out to see what he thought were firecrackers. Was he throwing stones at the police? I was right behind him and I could not even see them. They were shooting from behind a lorry. We were unconcealed.''

Anger is quite apparent at the attempt by various groups to place the blame for desecration at the doors of the Dalits themselves. Says Mohan Shelar, a worker of the Republican Party of India, ``We might not respect our own fathers, but we will never bring shame to Dr Ambedkar.'' Adds Dr Ahire, whose clinic is closest to the statue, ``My father was an angootha chhap. If I am a doctor today and able to talk on equal terms with savarnas, it is only because of Babasaheb. You think anyone of us will have the guts to commit such a sacrilege?''

The theory doing the rounds in the colony is that it has been penetrated by Shiv Sena and BJP workers who are now being held responsible for the attack on RPI general secretary Ramdas Athawale. ``None of us would dare to beat up one of our own leaders,'' says Shelar. ``But here there are some Bahujan Samaj Party workers also who do not exactly care for our politics.''

No one, however, ventures to take guesses about the hands and brains behind the desecration. But ample tanker theories abound: there were no tankers, they were empty, they were not exactly close to the colony when the firing took place, they were moved up after the firings ceased, the police video is doctored, the burnings near the tankers began after the firing and not before, et al.

Many of those killed were the sole wage earners, the under 18 boys were the sole male heirs. ``They should at least have spared the young lives,'' says the brother-in-law of Vilas Doke, the only son of aged parents who find their eyes are now too dry for even tears. So far the government has paid up only Rs 30,000 of the promised Rs 2 lakh in compensation to the survivors. Arun Gawli's men as well have been busy and each family has received Rs 5,000 from the notorious don. The heavy police presence meanwhile continues.

A garland of roses now circles the neck of Ambedkar's statue.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.