What is about to follow is a first-person account of Daljit Kaur, an employee of the Subzi Mandi branch of IDBI bank in Delhi, where violence ensued on Saturday morning as a group of goons attacked bank officials with stones and injured several of them.
"Like the last two days, we had a long queue of people waiting to deposit and exchange their money, and we were going according to the procedure. We were allowing 4-6 people at a time to come inside the bank.
But suddenly one person forced himself inside and got into a tussle with the security guard. He then called his father and a group of around 6-7 goons. They started to abuse us and threw really big stones.
When they broke the glasses, we panicked and ran to hide. Some of us went to hide inside the washroom, while the others locked themselves up in the secure vault area of the bank. We were hiding there for almost one hour. Several people got injured because of the stone pelting, including a customer.
They also beat up our security guard and one of the office boys badly when they tried to stop them. I think both of them have sustained serious internal injuries. The security guard even vomited.
After damaging the equipment, they gave us a threat that they would come back again and ran away. They even gave a death threat to two office boys who tried to stop them. For now, we have locked these office boys in a room inside the bank and we are not letting them out, fearing that they would be attacked.
We have been told that all these people are seasoned goons and often create trouble in the area. Police have come, and we are going to the hospital for treatment.
We are really scared right now that these people will come and attack us again. Hopefully, police will be able to nab them as soon as possible."
(As told to Kabir Upmanyu, The Quint)
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