I was still out somewhere between Safdarjung Hospital and South Extension when the Blasts hit the Sarojini Nagar Market. I was there in that very market a few hours before the bomb went off.

On the way back, I observed yet more disturbing scenes. One of them: As soon as the blast occurred, all of the busy markets were descended upon by policemen asking shoppers to leave and shopkeepers to pull down their shutters. Most complied immediately given the fact that the news had spread almost instantaneously over cell phones.

Yet, some parts of the market with shops and stuff catering primarily to poorer sections were still crowded with reluctant shoppers who did not manage to understand the enormity of situation. The labourer class people who had come to purchase cheap bargainable stuff for family and children for the festivals ahead did not quite understand the situation and thus were not in any hurry. The small street side pavement vendors of cheap clothes, tinklets and stuff were even less reluctant to loose the holiday earnings.

A few policemen near South Extension went berserk and started to hit street vendoring women to move away, broke decorative lights a few shopkeepers were busy putting up and rained verbal abuses to coerce everyone to leave. Short of a full charging, they move up and down narrow streets making sure everyone complied with their orders to leave.

This was a sorry sight. On one hand we had Terrorists planting bombs to kill young girls and innocent people in markets and we have our Police whose idea of efficiently vacating an area involves the similar terror tactics (although of a much lower magnitude, but nevertheless terrorising) as the terrorists themselves.

Sometimes, it IS difficult to convince people calmly to leave a place since the threat of more bombs going off was a reality, and the police have to resort to some sort of coercion to achieve its goals. But it could be mild without involving lathi charging (Indian term for using the baton) women vendors who survive on what they earn selling each day.

I fail to rationalise this kind of disturbing and shocking behavior, much less accept it as practicality.