Unforgettable Experience.

 

It was around 7-30 in the evening on October 2, 1972. I was walking towards a hotel for my supper in one of the busiest locations in Guntur town. You remember those days when eating supper by 7-30 and retiring to bed by 8 pm was very common. People raised their eyebrows if you told that you retire to bed only after 9 pm English news over All India Radio ! 

All around me, people were walking in all directions avoiding the high seat cycle rikshaws moving hapazardly wading through the holiday evening crowd. I passed one and was about 6 feet away. Suddenly I heard a pistol shot sound. I mistook it for a Dipavali pistol going off as the festival was just round the corner. However the sound compelled me to turm my head towards the point of its origin. In the rikshaw that I just passed by, I saw a dhoti clad man standing up and trying to hold the metal frame used for fixing the foldable rexin top. Just as he stood up to hold the frame, a hand bomb was thrown at him which exploded filling the area with smoke. As smoke started to spread, I saw the man collapse in the rikshaw. I also saw 2 persons running away from the other side of the rikshaw in the fleeting moment before the smoke spread. People panicked and ran for safety all around. The smoke cleared in a minute or so.

While all people were running away, I walked towards the rickshaw to help the man. Rikshaw puller also tried to help...we failed to get him on to the seat. I tried to look for help from a policeman who was only trying to manage the crowd. He didn't show any concern about the man in rickshaw. Realising the emergency, I jumped on to the rikshaw, sitting on the seat, I supported the victim in sitting posture to lean against my leg, I asked the rikshaw puller to rush to the govt general hospital about a kilometer away. He pedalled the rikshaw as fast as he could. We reached the hospital and went to the emergency casualty department. The CMO knew me as a medical representative. He immediately attended on the man. With all best efforts, the man didn't gain consciousness and died in about 15-20 minutes. As it was a medico legal case I had to wait until the Police arrived. As the doctors were struggling to revive the man, I tried to pay the rikshaw puller. He point blank refused to accept money saying that both of us were only trying to help in an emergency and he was doing his bit as a dutiful human being. 

The police arrived at the hospital a little later. The CMO told them that I had brought the man. After a few cursory questions about my job, how I happened to be at the crime scene and if I was in anyway connected to the murdered man, they let me off. They wanted a formal statement from me a few days later.  But they only remembered that I was a young medical representative. As they did not have my address, they dispatched a search party to trace me. They obviously tried to get me at places of my work. A few doctors and chemists were approached in this connection. When I visited those doctors and chemists, I was told about the police having contacted them. The Police had missed me at a few places just by a few minutes. They eventually got me after 3-4 days at a chemist shop where I had gone to make a call. They took me to a police station to get my statement about the crime. The  matter ended there. I was not bothered by the police any further.

When I picked up the man, I had just no idea as to who he was or about Sattenapalli factions. All about the chain of murders of Sattenapalli factions, I heard only when people  told me later. Many friends were enquiring why I picked up a man in such obvious circumstances of murder attempt. Almost every one was talking about possible police pressure and danger from both factions. Even the rickshaw puller had told me that he wanted to go away before police arrived at the hospital as otherwise he feared arm twisting of him by the police as a witness. Fortunately, none of this frightened me. I must confess that the police were nice to me and accepted me as a bystander who just did what any good citizen should have done in those circumstances. I was also not called in as a witness in the court case.

To cut the story short, the victim in this case was Accused No.1 in Sattenapalli chain murder case. He was out on bail. He was shot at by the opposing party whose member was earlier supposedly got murdered by him. Both the factions belonged to Sattenapalli. Strangely they belonged to 2 most unlikely crime connected vysya and brahmin communities.