This is the second part of a series on a civil society report into the Delhi riots in February put together by a team of about 30 young pe...
This is the second part of a series on a civil society report into the Delhi riots in February put together by a team of about 30 young people who answered the Karwan e Mohabbat’s call for volunteers to run a rescue helpline.
I first begin with the report of the ragtag rescue team of largely young men and women that began work in our office and then did not sleep for 72 hours. With “neither the experience nor the infrastructure, but only the heart to fill in the gap left by the state”, they established a makeshift control room, responding to distress calls that started pouring in once the helpline numbers from the group were made public, shared by other civil society groups as well and so on and so forth.
They recall that the first few hours of the first night (February 25) were the worst. “With the police high command being largely unresponsive and inert, the only option was to call the distressed person, take down the details, dial 100, press upon the necessity to send force immediately, note down the CRN number and their verbal commitment (to at least leave a digital trace)…. As there was no concrete assurance from the...
