Of Arson and Violence

In the wastelands of Western Vidharbha, in a small hamlet, in the eastern shadows of Maharashtra's vast geography, you will be surprised to come across a hillock on which are perched a dozen, tall futuristic buildings. This is the private Science and Technology college that would not have existed had it not been for the fact that this was the village that gave the state of Maharashtra two Chief Ministers. In the midst of parched farmlands and dry wasteland sprung up a miracle in architecture, equipped with one of the best scientific equipment in the country, well skilled lecturers from every part of India, and creme de la creme alumni of the local government college of engineering.
It was no wonder that the reputation of this college spread far and wide. The college had prospective candidates from as far flung states from Bengal to Gujarat and from Kerala to Kashmir.
All went well for a long time, though the college inmates segregated themselves state-wise and then caste-wise, thereby preserving their sometimes aggressive culture instead of assimilating the local. There was always someone from this elite colleage who topped the ranks in science and technology.
A cult of Muslims had made their home in this god forsaken place many centuries ago. They were mostly small time businessmen and consequently higher up the social pyramid. They differed in physique and you could say they belonged to some different race. While the locals were dark skinned and stunted, these muslim migrants were tall and of a very fair color. It was as if there had been an exodus many many years back from some Himalayan region to this wasteland which they had now decided to call home.
The females of this muslim clan were fair skinned, tall and had aristocratic features with grey blue eyes much like Persian women, though they did wear the burkah, some of them the hijab and some even the purdah in the intolerable heat.
It was for one beautiful damsel, the daughter of a wealthy muslim businessman, that a Kashmiri student(lets call him Vikki, son of a DSP in Kashmir) of the college fell for. He promsised to marry the girl and take her off to his native Kashmir once his studies were over. He consulted this young beauty's parents and they readily agreed, considering the fact that they were both muslim and shared a common culture in the vague sense.
But it was the girl's brother who did not take it that easy. He took umbrage to the fact that Vikki and his new girlfriend had take a vacation to Kashmir, with the girl's father's permission of course.
Vikki was stabbed twice in the back by his love's brother when he was out in town one evening. News, or it could be rumour reached the college that Vikki was hanging betweeen life and death in the local hospital.
The Kashmiri conglomerate at the college took serious note of the matter and held an impromptu meeting. They were soon joined by Delhiites, Punjabis... and everyone soon forgot their cultural differences and were out on the road in the mid of night, baying for local blood, calling out "Revenge!", deciding that the event was an insult to the college inmates. There was rioting and arson. Several shops, the very shops whose services they availed of, the local video parlors, cigarette vending shops went up in flames. The Head of Department, computer Science lit a cigarette as he coolly watched tea stalls, ramshackle eating joints, laundry shops going up in flames in a matter of hours just in front of the college gates.
Police arrived in the wee hours of the morning with arson continuing to the early hours. The policemen were small in number; they were local police not trained to handle something of this magnitude.
The unequipped police were pushed back by bricks and stones thrown by the college inmates. Some of the more enterprising and shady of the Gorakhpuris were ready with country made guns(katta) they had smuggled in, and others had cycle chains; and hacksaw blades sharpened at the edges in the mechanical department's workshop to serve as knives.
The police force that arrived that afternoon, however, were not the ordinary policemen these rampaging students had faced earlier. These were the State Reserved Police Force(SRPF) specially trained in handling riots. When the rioting students welcomed the SRPF with stones and cycle chains, they fired at the crowd. Some Kashmiri youth, who had been in riot situations in their native Kashmir before, spread the rumor that the firing was just a ruse, the rubber bullets would not harm anybody.
But what the SRPF fired that day were real bullets, and two Kashmiri students were fatally shot.
Seeing their fallen comrades, the rampaging college students fled in all directions.
As usually what happens in such situations, it was the innocent bystanders who were caught in the cross-fire. The real perpetrators of the riot locked themselves in their hostel rooms and it was 210 mostly innocent students who were simply witness to the goings-on, who were led to the Central Prison that bloody day.
After one month in the central prison treated as ordinary criminals, sleeping next to proclaimed offencers and sharing their meals with murderers, these poor young men were released on bail from judicial custody. The political guardian of the district being a high profile hot-shot hushed up the whole matter afraid of a political undertone. Not a single national newspaper reported it, except a miniscule local newspaper that published a small column that everybody soon forgot about.