Doval, who also travelled to Maujpur that had witnessed street clashes for two days, told reporters that the police had established peace in the national capital.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, the Centre’s point person to restore law and order in north-east Delhi, headed back to the hotspots of violence over the last three days to review the situation. Doval, who also travelled to Maujpur that had witnessed street clashes for two days, told reporters that the police had established peace in the national capital.
Doval also underscored that he had been tasked to visit the affected areas and hold review meetings by Home Minister Amit Shah.
This was Doval’s second visit to the district in 24 hours.
North-east Delhi has been the epicentre of the violence that started as clashes between groups in favour and against the amended citizenship law before degenerating into full-fledged communal riots. In several areas, the police had been accused of taking sides in the clashes.
Doval had earlier in the day acknowledged the sentiment in some areas that the police hadn’t been fair and told news channel NDTV that the police had to address doubts in the mind of people who had doubts about its “capabilities and intentions”.
NSA Doval, who had been caught up at meetings linked to visiting US President Donald Trump’s visit yesterday, step in soon after the visiting dignitary left late last evening.
He drove straight to the north-east district chief Ved Prakash Surya’s office in Seelampur along with Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik for a review. Around midnight, Doval left for some riot-hit areas to review the situation.
NSA Doval continued to keep his focus sharply on the Delhi situation on Wednesday too.
Late afternoon, he returned to the DCP office for a quick review to ascertain how the situation had changed since last evening. There had been a few instances of arson earlier in the day in two pockets.
Back in the trouble spots, Doval was seen reaching out to people in Hindu and Muslim neighbourhoods.
“A few criminals do things like this (spread violence)…Police are here and doing their work… Inshallah yahan par bilkul aman hoga. (God willing, there will be complete peace here),” he said at one of his interactions, according to news agency ANI.
People familiar with the development said NSA Doval, who has been seen to be aggressively standing up for the police in his public interactions and before the cameras to boost their morale, has given them an earful. The assessment at the Centre is that Delhi Police did not, at many places, make an effort to enter the bylanes where violence was being reported.
NSA Doval, who had headed the operations wing of Intelligence Bureau for a decade before heading the agency in 2004-05, is the first top officer of the security establishment to go on extensive rounds of the riot-affected areas. Like Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, Doval was a 1968 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. Patnaik is a 1985 batch officer.
Prasanta Patnaik