It is around 4 am, Saturday, more than 24 hours since the pitched battle at Jawahar Bagh in Mathura between members of a cult group and the police, which has left at least 24 people, including two police officers, dead. At a rickshaw stall near the city’s old bus stand, all 95-year-old Goba Devi wants is to go home.
For the last more than a year, ‘home’ was the once-sprawling park in the city, gradually taken over by members of Swadheen Bharat Subhash Sena, followers of Jai Gurudev, a self-proclaimed spiritual leader who died in 2012. But now, home for the nonagenarian means her village in Kushinagar district at the other end of the state, nearly 700 km away.
It has been 24 hours since Goba Devi’s grandson, Rajesh, carried her on his back and left her here. Since then, she is at the mercy of people around — for food, and for water.
Having arrived at Jawahar Bagh a year ago for a “promised darshan of the current Guruji”, Goba Devi had been staying at the park, which had turned into a protest site for nearly 3,000 members of the cult since March 2014, with her daughter’s family. Thursday’s violence has left her shaken. In retrospect, she believes the “satyagrahis” should have vacated the illegally occupied government land.
Recalling the battle with the police, she says, “All I heard was the sound of firing, and people screaming. Suddenly people started running…. My grandson, Rajesh, lifted me on his back and he, too, ran.” She asks whether it is true that all houses at Jawahar Bagh had been gutted, before whispering, “We had two houses there…they should have vacated the place. At least we could have been together now.”