1992 Bhopal Riots – A Report

6 December 1992 was to be the day in Madhya Pradesh when the famous music director Rahul Dev Burman was scheduled to receive the Lata Mangeshkar Puruskar. The meeting was cancelled. By afternoon when the domes of Babri Masjid began to fall, the news spread in the state capital Bhopal through cable TV. There was commotion, especially in the muslim majority localities of Old Bhopal. At some places Bajrang Dal activists led the celebration by bursting crackers and distributing sweets. Chief Minister Sunder Lal Patwa called an emergency meeting of the cabinet. It was followed by a meeting of senior officials. Both these meetings discussed measures to maintain law and order. In neither of these meetings measures specially meant for Bhopal were discussed. Indore, Jabalpur and other places figured. Much later a news item planted in the wake of controversy over the role of the suspended Collector of Bhopal, was to refer to an intelligence report that warned of trouble in the city. But no effective measures were initiated in these meetings. And the city witnessed most horrendous violence
in the riots that followed the demolition. Altogether 21 places were seriously affected in Madhya Pradesh, in which 161 people were killed. 139 of them in Bhopal.