Residents living in fear in Ghaziabad locality after stones hurled at houses, cops clueless

Residents of Ashok Nagar A block are a worried lot these days as their houses have come under regular attack by unidentified stone-pelters since Monday night and teams of police have remained clueless despite efforts. Police said that they will now use drones to trace the suspects as manual search yielded no results during the past three days.

The A block is located adjacent to the Ghaziabad-Meerut railway section and residents have been living in fear as pieces of bricks, tiles and other material have hit their houses regularly since Monday night.

Adjacent to the railway tracks, there are a number of nurseries close to the main road carrying traffic from Raj Nagar and Kavi Nagar residential areas.

Residents said that children, women and senior citizens have stopped stepping out of their houses and are keeping awake the entire night to zero in on the suspects.

“There is no clue about the stone-pelters. But, it is sure that the stones are coming from across the railway tracks. Our houses have been hit and window panes have been broken as well as cars have also suffered damages. The stones have been hurled in the presence of police and multiple searches have yielded no results. Pieces of bricks and broken tiles were being hurled all these days,” said Tapan Gupta, a resident.

“At least 40-50 stones are getting hurled at our houses in a day and they come at any point of time either in day or night. There are at least 20 houses which have been affected directly,” Gupta added, saying that his car also got hit.

“The stones have been hurled at our houses with great speed and it is not possible to throw these manually. The distance from our houses to the other side of the railway tracks is about 30 metres and it is not possible for a person to throw bricks with such precision and speed. Police personnel have been in the lookout for the miscreants but are clueless. Our only consolation is that none of our residents have been hit, otherwise they would have suffered grave injuries,” said Sanjay Chitkara, another resident.

Several pieces of bricks also landed in the locality during a visit by the HT team on Thursday morning.

“The stones have landed in the presence of police personnel and now they are taking it seriously. Residents have stopped moving out and cars have been parked at different locations in our locality,” Chitkara added.

The locality falls under the jurisdiction of Sihani Gate police station, which is barely a kilometre away.

“Our teams launched several searches for the past three days on complaints raised by residents but the suspects have not been traced so far. Now, we will use drones to trace them and strict action will be taken against the suspects,” said Alok Dubey, circle officer (city 2).