On Sunday, 76 cars inside Oasis complex in Kolkata were smashed within a span of 45 minutes by a mob
In Kolkata, the driver of a luxury car was on Thursday sent to police custody for two days for killing a scooter rider on Sunday. But the arrest did not calm nerves at an upscale housing complex near the crash site vandalised by people from a nearby slum. The slum people suspected, wrongly, the killer car driver lived there.
A 'gated community' comprising 350 flats in six towering buildings, 'Oasis' on Panditya Road has two slums nearby. On Sunday, 76 cars inside the complex were smashed within a span of 45 minutes by a mob that also allegedly threatened to burn the buildings down.
"When I heard them shouting, let's get petrol, lets burn it all down, I was scared. Both gates of the complex had been shut by the mob. We couldn't even run away," said Laxmi Bajaj, a sixth floor resident.
"The mood they were in, it was to destroy everything," said President of the residents association, Ajit Daga. Even though the police arrested people and posted security at their gates, residents of the colony still feel insecure and are now working on improving their security on their own with stronger gates, more CCTV, he added.
At 3 am that day, a Mercedez hit a scooter, killing its driver about 1.5 km away from Oasis. The attack came at 8 am, leaving residents wondering if it was premeditated or a conflict of haves and have-nots.
A retired factory employee, Ram Charan Rai, living opposite the complex says he doesn't believe it's a rich-poor clash. "But people are saying the rich will pay money and get away with anything," he says.
Suhrita Saha, sociology head at Presidency University, is not surprised. "Earlier, there were rich and poor people but the difference was not so visible, the consumption was not so conspicuous," she says.
At 3 am that day, a Mercedez hit a scooter.
"The gated community cannot hope to remain an island untouched by the reality outside," Ms Saha adds, "My fear is, if the system is not more inclusive, such violence will become more frequent and bloody."
In a city known for its tradition of a peaceful co-existence between different classes of society, Varun Maheshwari, the arrested driver of the car, may have cost the city more than the life of just one of its residents.