Mob ransacks Ahmedabad Mayor’s office

There they were joined by another group armed with trishuls and shouting religious slogans. The mob then moved out towards the Commissioner’s office and tried to break the office’s iron grills.

Sinha, who was to attend thescheduled general board meeting, did so with an escort from the fire brigade and by using a different route to the board room.

However, he couldn’t elude the mob which, on spotting him, also made for the board room, pushing aside fire brigade personnel standing guard. Once in, the demonstrators tried to reach the dais where the Commissioner was but senior officials, including Station officer M F Dastoor and Divisional Officer N J Mod, blocked their way.

The general board then adopted a condolence resolution over the demise of Minister of State for urban and rural housing Maganbhai Kasundra and two former corporators, following which the Mayor adjourned the meeting till Tuesday. Sinha, Mayor Patel and several other officials then went to the Mayor’s ante-chamber, at which point the mob entered the room and began ransacking it. They threw furniture out, broke several chairs and tables and smashed some window panes.

There was also an attempt to stab Mod with a trishul but a fireman intervened in theprocess hurting his hand.

The trishul-bearing group then presented a memorandum – on the VHP letterhead – to the Commissioner, demanding reconstruction of the temple within 24 hours. They left, claiming they had been given an assurance to this effect by Sinha.

This left the field open for the builders, who held an impromptu meeting and demanded an assurance that the administrative wing would open the seals on their shops.

Interestingly, Mayor Joitaram Patel refused to react to this entire incident with any alarm; he said the attack was on the Commissioner and not the elected wing. The issue of whether or not there was a temple remained, and he would inquire into the matter.

Patel also said that the people in the mob were not miscreants, but common men who had come to register their protest. He said he had seen no trishul and the BJP MLA had arrived on the spot after he received news of the incident.

“There was no violence in my chamber”, Patel said, and even refused to admit that either theCommissioner or the elected wing had given any assurance over the reconstruction of the temple.

In another interesting reaction, Steering Committee chairman and BJP leader in the corporation Surendra Patel said the mob was comprised not of Bajrang Dal and VHP workers but of builder, who were Congress supporters.