A near fatal altercation between two classmates at a Government School in Bhatiyani Chohatta area of the walled city of Udaipur, led to a mini riot in the otherwise peaceful city of Udaipur. Timely action by the police and administration controlled a situation that could have ballooned into a mammoth law and order situation following a communal riot.

Two students, belonging to different communities, got into an altercation allegedly related to a previous matter. During the ensuing lunch break, the students began their argument outside the premises and one of them attacked the other with a sharp weapon, causing a near fatal injury. The victim was taken to hospital and one of the students who took him to hospital, also belonged to the same community as that of the attacker. The victim has been treated and is out of danger. The attacker has been detained being a minor and his father has been taken into custody, while investigations are on to round up others who were a part of this (allegedly pre-planned) attack.

This is one part of the story - sad that it happened and sadder that it was the result of a fight between two immature minors, yet to complete their high school.

However, what followed this incident was worse - rampage and havoc, a kind not seen in Udaipur before. Yes, there have been incidents of communities getting into a fight of words and leading processions in a show of strength and public arguments - but not arson and stone pelting or damaging targeted properties to an extent seen today, on 16 August, a day after the whole town was immersed in the gaiety and enthusiasm of Independence Day - Saffron, White and Green taking equal space, clothes, vehicles, buildings, roads and walls.

While the family and close friends and community members of the injured child were in hospital demanding justice and care, a small unruly mob, not totalling to more than a few hundred came out under the watchful eye of a handful of policemen, out on the roads of Bapu Bazar, Ashwani Bazar, leading up to Hathipol and Chetak Marg, all in less than a kilometre of vicinity to the school where the knife attack happened.

The crowd went along chanting slogans. As they reached the masjid a Hathipol, the crowd went into disarray and the police who were meant to have an eye on them, did not know what was happening. Members of the crowd began to pelt stones at the masjid, began pelting stones at the shops and properties targeted to belong to members of a particular community. Glass was shattered; bill boards outside shops were pulled down. A doctors clinic on Ashwani Bazar was pelted with stones, such that the clinic floor was full of shattered pieces of glass, not sure of what the patients in the clinic went through or if any one was injured in this dastardly and cowardly attack. Cars were overturned and burnt and pick up vehicles parked in a row in Ashwani Bazar were burnt by the cowards in this mob.

A mall, in the middle of Hathipol, that had just been through a fine intercommunity marking of Independence Day a day before, was seemingly the main target of this mob. Stones were pelted at this property which housed residences, shops and offices of people from different communities. The entire facade of this building was in tatters and the floor, which was full of flowers a day before, was filled with thousands of pieces of broken glass. In the process, the office of a prominent local channel "Bebaak Rajasthan" also came in the line of fire of the miscreants. The glass window of the office was shattered, however no one was injured. The watchman, caretaker and a security guard of the business complex were also injured in the stone pelting.

The mob was dispersed by the police, and would have attacked another area. However, even as the mob was dispersed, and now that things look seemingly in control of the police and administration, this entire episode of a few hours in a very small but significantly sensitive section of the city, which probably holds the honours of the highest secular quotient of Udaipur, has left the residents of a bad taste in mouth, pain in their hearts and a feeling of what the city could witness in the future if this sort of mind-set is not controlled or treated now. While it has been called as a "few incidents here and there" by large parts of the local media - for Udaipur, is it the shredding of its social fabric? Never mind...Udaipur will overcome this as well...shortly.