A JOINT delegation of CPI(M) and CPI leaders visited Trilok Puri in East Delhi on October 28. They met the local residents of the area affected during the recent communal violence which started on the night of Diwali. Trilokpuri is a resettlement colony in East Delhi. Tension has been brewing here for more than a month on some pretext or the other. The last has been the Jagran, right opposite a mosque a little before Dussehra. This led to tension which turned into a riot on Diwali. The delegation comprised of Mohd Salim, CPI(M) MP, Subhashini Ali, Jogendra Sharma, P M S Grewal, all Central Committee members of the CPI(M), Anurag Saxena, East Delhi district secretary, P I Ravindranathan, Maimoona Mollah, Ram Kanwar Imran Ahmed, Trilok Puri branch secretary, CPI(M) and Dhirendra Sharma, secretary, CPI Delhi state council, Dinesh Varshney, assistant secretary, CPI Delhi state council, Dr Kair Singh, secretary, CPI East Delhi council along with local party activists. The delegation visited the affected site in block 20 where the Mata ki choki still exists. Besides this they visited blocks 22, 26, 27, 28. The delegation spoke with over a hundred local residents who narrated their tales of horror. They found that five shops were gutted in the area, all belonging to the minority community. People from both sides of the divide mentioned two names who were instrumental in engineering the flare-up – BJP’s ex-MLA Sunil Vaid and Ram Charan Gujrati. In block 28, residents alleged that the hoodlums broke open the locks of shops and looted them. The pattern that was clear from the discussion with the local people was polarisation on communal lines. This is a well-planned strategy experimented by BJP time and again for their electoral advantage. Later the delegation also met the DCP East district, Ajay Kumar and the SHO at PS Mayur Vihar and discussed the situation in the area and the steps taken against those responsible for instigation of communal conflagration and the subsequent communal violence. They further discussed the preventive measures being taken by the police to control the further spread of communal tension. When the delegation questioned the police about burning of the shops, the DCP maintained that the shop that got burnt on October 25 was an accident due to short circuit, while he was clueless about the other four shops. The delegation demanded from the Government of Delhi that 1. The culprits be immediately brought to book – in particular those named by the local residents, namely Sunil Vaid and Ram Charan Gujrati 2. FIRs must be registered against those who burnt shops 3. Assess the loss that the affected people have incurred during the riot 4. Adequate compensation be provided to the affected people 5. Adequate preventive measures be taken to ensure that no further incident takes place.