NEW DELHI: A young man from Kashmir — who remained holed up for over 40 hours in a madrasa in old Mustafabad to escape the rioters during violence in parts of northeast Delhi — on Friday recalled the horror. Basharat Shaifi, 25, said that his ordeal began after rioting broke out in his Chand Bagh locality on Tuesday night.
He said that he was studying in his rented house when an anxious neighbour, Hamid, came around 10 pm on Tuesday and asked him to flee since violence had broken out.
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Shaifi said that fearing for his life, he locked his house and fled with only a mobile phone in his pocket. Hamid, a local, accompanied by his wife and children led them through the lanes and bylanes to old Mustafabad.
“We all reached a two-storey seminary around 10.30 pm, but it was already swarming with people — young, old, and children — who too were trying to escape the rioters,” Shaifi said.
Narrating how he was rescued, Shaifi said one of his friends was a Kashmiri journalist whom he contacted on Thursday and told her about his ordeal. She then contacted Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajan Bhagat, who was posted in the Crime Branch in old Mustafabad.
The IPS officer contacted him to tell him about the evacuation plan, following which Bhagat went to the seminary along with a posse of security personnel on Thursday evening and rescued him.