After four days of unbridled violence triggered by the Jat demand for job reservation, ordinary people who've lost their homes and businesses to arson and looting shamed both the Congress and BJP on Tuesday. While former Congress CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his supporters were accused of instigating mobs who ran amok, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was accused of failure to protect non-Jats from the mobs. As Hooda reached Rohtak on Tuesday, his political stronghold, victims of the violence surrounded his house and shouted slogans. Angry women threw bangles at Hooda and his supporters while one hurled a shoe at Hooda amid loud slogan-shouting.
People vented their anger over an audio clip going viral in which Hooda's former political advisor, professor Virender Singh, is allegedly heard asking a khap member to instigate violence in Sirsa.
Khattar was heckled by the victims. Traders and other residents also showed him black flags. Alleging complete failure by both by the police and Rohtak MLA Manish Grover in controlling the violence, the traders sought judicial probe in to the circumstances leading to the violence. They accused Grover of being inaccessible during the peak of the violence.
Hooda was later asked by cops to leave the city. Rohtak acting SP Saurabh Singh said, "As the people kept agitating outside his house, we advised him to leave the city. "
Hooda's son and Rohtak MP Deepender, who was with him, too left the city.
The protesters, mainly traders who'd lost their shops in the violence, also abused cops on duty . "Where were these policemen when our shops were on fire?" asked one of them. "Today , you have 1,000 cops to protect one man. Had police done its job, we would not have been sitting on dharna like this."
Khattar cut short his address to the victims at the government guest house as the slogan-shouting continued, and was escorted out of the venue by cops.
We believe that the violence was planned, that the rioters had reconnoitred the region to identify which shops to attack and which to avoid," said a protester, Loveleen Tuteja, also senior member of the Punjabi community associated with the BJP.
"Not only did the government fail to protect us, we believe that the police and local administration even misguided the Army ," she alleged.
Khattar told reporters later that his government would not spare those found guilty of the violence. He assured action against officers who failed in their duties.
Khattar pledged adequate compensation to traders and went around the city before flying off to Chandigarh. Nineteen people were killed in the violence that started on Friday with relative calm returning only on Tuesday.
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