Curfew on data shuts down life: Was Jaipur Police extra panicky?

Suddenly the Pink City looks totally off colour and completely offline. Deserted streets and closed shops are just eerie testimonies to the panic that struck in the Walled City after a youth died in police firing. A small matter of traffic regulation turned into a grave situation. So much so that crowd turned into violent mob and police had to resort to firing to control them. A localised problem got complicated for no reasons. Curfew was clamped in parts of Walled City. And Internet services were banned pan Jaipur, cutting off city’s online access.

The issue was trivial and the resolution should have also been prompt and proper. But a small lapse, a little miscommunication, a gross misjudgment and miscalculation on police part have made the entire city to pay up the price. Life is not only crippled in curfew-struck areas but people of other parts of the city are equally suffering. It seems panicky police has taken too much caution to throw normal life in the city out of gear.

“There was no communal element in the entire episode. Why Police is taking so much of precaution? At the most they could have banned mobile data in the Walled City. Why entire city is suffering for a localised issue,” said Akhtar Ali, a resident of Vaishali Nagar.

Jaipur had last witnessed curfew in 2008 after the serial bomb blasts which had cost around 65 lives. 9 years later, officials who had dealt with curfew that time feel that there was a little administrative lapse also.

The Internet ban has affected one and all. If Amit Sharma had to miss his Skype interview for a senior position for a multinational company, Sangram Singh could not transfer money to his ailing mother’s account. These are not isolated cases. Banking services, travel bookings, business transactions, tax deposits and all digital services, which are there to make our lives easy, have been affected badly.

“The city has suffered great financial losses. Due to curfew, hotels lost their bookings, tourists cancelled their bookings and daily trading suffered badly. It will have long term impact as well. Fear factor will play in minds of tourists for some time having a trickling effect on tourist influx,” said Naresh Bhatia, a travel agent.

A large number of people living in Walled City are daily wagers. For them, a day off means empty stomach. And for Rashid, who has come from Nagaur to fund treatment of his ailing son, loss of Rs 500 per day cost him two day’s medicines and more miserable life for his son.

“We hope that relatives of the victim will own the body and postmortem is allowed. We don’t want to be victim for no reasons. We want life to breathe through the open doors and streets,” said Mohd. Aslam, a resident of Ramganj.