Hyderabad, April 08: The thoroughfares radiating from the Charminar in the Old City looked like any Saturday street today, and nothing like a city that wobbled on the edge of bloody rioting just the previous weekend. Women in burqas haggled with pavement hawkers and demure girls offered their hands to bangle salesmen in Lad Bazar. People went about their business as if nothing had happened to disturb the peace. This is a new Old City, a departure from the old, when a single incident of violence would trigger week-long rioting.
Last Saturday, after the assassination attempt on MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, most people expected a long spell of violence, familiar to those who have lived through fortnight-long communal riots and resulting curfews. Anticipating reprisals from Akbar’s troopers, police rushed in 20,000 policemen to man the streets. People rushed to ATMs to draw money for the dog days ahead and people stocked up on vegetables.
However, the bandh called on last Sunday went off peacefully with no incident of violence. While shopkeepers downed shutters for the Sunday as they do normally, the streets off Charminar milled as usual with bargain hunters in peaceful contention with pavement hawkers.
“Humko politics se kya karna hai,” Abdul Rehman, a resident of Chandrayangutta. ”Humko apni rozi roti dekhna hai aur politics mein koi interest nai hai.”
Unlike in the past, when a murder of even a political foot soldier, would be enough to create a tense situation for days, the reaction from the people after the attack on Akbaruddin indicates a change in the mindset of people in the Old City. “I was praying that violence should not break out since my family is completely dependent on what I earn,” said Sheikh Mahboob, a fruit seller near Charminar. “Last year’s communal clashes really affected me. I could not do business for several days and my family suffered. So I was praying that there would be no violence this time.”
“On the day of the bandh, luckily none of the MIM supporters forced us to down shutters, which actually surprised us. But we were on our toes despite the heavy bandobust was there,” Syed Anwar, a shop keeper at Pattargatti.
Relieved police officials said they were pleasantly surprised by the calm manner in which the people reacted to the attack on the MIM MLA.
–Agencies