Former Haryana chief minister and state Congress president Chaudhary Bhajan Lal beat a hasty retreat on Thursday from the narrow lanes of the Dalit locality in Samta Chowk.
Bhajan Lal arrived there with a cavalcade of 15 cars to visit the spot that witnessed looting and arsoning of more than 50 Dalit households by upper caste people in Gohana on Wednesday afternnoon.
"Bhai, koi Dalit bhai ho to unka bulao (If there is a Dalit brother please call him)," he said loudly as he entered the locality under media glare.
"Sir, it would not be safe to go beyond this point as the people, particularly the Dalits, are seething with anger," said a local Congress leader. Promptly, Bhajan Lal's security personnel decided to take Lal back to his car before any harm could be done.
Before leaving, Lal told rediff.com he would ensure all possible help is rendered to the Dalits whose houses were burnt. "Hum jo ban padega karenge," he said.
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was expected to visit the victims at the scene of violence, but he failed to turn up till afternoon. "We have no information about his arrival," said a senior police official when asked if the chief minister was expected to come.
Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party's member of Parliament from Sonepat Kishan Singh Sangwan kept explaining to the media that his two sons, whose names figure in the first information report filed by the local police in Gohana had nothing to do with the violence.
"The elections in Rohtak parliamentary constitutency are due in September and they have given a political twist to the whole incident. Hooda wants his son to reach Parliament and he wants to send my sons to jail," Sangwan told rediff.com at Satsang Bhavan, Annaj Mandi, Gohana.
He blamed the state administration for not taking effective action when things were heating up. "They knew that the situation was getting out of hand. If they had arrested those who killed Balbir Singh, then there would have been no problem. But the police did not take action agains the goons who had allegedly killed the man.
"This culminated in unfortunate violence. I assure all the Dalit brothers and sisters that they would be given full protection and hence they should return to their houses," he said.
But did he talk to the chief minister of Haryana when things were getting out of hand?
"No, I did not," he admitted. But he absolved himself and his sons of any misdeed and claimed that his sons have been falsely implicated in the case.