#THREAD on what we saw/heard in Maujpur - Feb 25. Till about 12 pm, men, young and old, were busy "preparing". Every single scrap of metal, piece of wood were extracted. They patrolled the lanes and bylanes. 
Around 1.30 pm, two bike-borne Muslim youths, speeding towards the Maujpur Chowk were stopped. They were thrashed. Security personnel rushed in, lobbed tear gas, mob dispersed. Only to regroup, soon.
Ambulances zipped past one after another. There was no way one could record them. Flipping out mobile could prove extremely costly. Journalists were asked to open galleries of their phones and warned not to capture pictures, videos. CCTVs across the stretch were smashed.
As tension rose, reinforcements - paramilitary and SSB - arrived. They were greeted with slogans - Musalmaanon ko danda maaro, hum tumhaare saath hai, Delhi Police zindabad and various other slogans.
By afternoon, there was a definite pattern: properties owned by Muslims were targeted for arson and police arrived after the stores were set ablaze. We saw a hair cutting salon, two fruit juice shops, one bike repair shop being attacked and set on fire.
The hair cutting salon on fire. This is inside west Jyoti Nagar.
One of the fruit vandalised fruit juice shops and a motor bike repair shop. Also ransacked. Vehicles were dragged out and set in fire. Video in next tweet
The vehicles going up in flames. This is very close to the Maujpur Chowk.
Look at what this trader had to say when a shop run by a Muslim, located next to a market owned by him, came under attacked. He not only intervened and handed over the arsonist to police, but also had a message to share. Pls listen:
Around 6.30 pm, more vehicles were set on fire outside the Gokulpuri tyre market, which shares a boundary with a petrol pump. There was no police presence in the vicinity of the market, charred and smouldering.
Around 8 pm, the flames outside the market had subsided, but a residential property, about a kilometre away in Chandbagh, was burning. Charred remains of several vehicles lay overturned. Not a single streetlight was functional. The anti-CAA protest site lay demolished.
Across the stretch, we saw many more such fires.
A few metres ahead, a large mob could be seen freely moving around and targeting specific properties as RAF stood, a few metres away. Cars were allowed to pass amid religious cries, which had a menacing communal tone.
Everything mentioned in this thread and more have been documented in this story in today's @IndianExpress . With @dipankarghose31 Pls read indianexpress.com/article/cities…
My colleague @mohanreports was in neighbouring Chandbagh, which witnessed a pitched battle for nearly three hours. Read about the police's role and more indianexpress.com/article/cities…
This is what Mohammed Zubair, a brutal assault on whom was captured by a Reuters photographer, had to say to @mohanreports
"They made communally charged slurs and took (BJP leader) Kapil Mishra’s name."
indianexpress.com/article/cities…
"They made communally charged slurs and took (BJP leader) Kapil Mishra’s name."
indianexpress.com/article/cities…
As the bodies were wheeled in...
@Asthasaxena88 and @jignasa_sinha reports from the hospitals
indianexpress.com/article/cities…
@Asthasaxena88 and @jignasa_sinha reports from the hospitals
indianexpress.com/article/cities…
