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Patna: An iftar party organised by an MLA from the Darbhanga district, in the honour of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejaswi Yadav, on Friday evening, turned into chaos after a hungry mob looted a pickup truck carrying food for the event.
A video, doing the rounds on social media, shows Tejaswi, in a prayer cap, sitting on the dais with other party leaders. Moments later, things start to go wrong as people, including women, rush towards a pickup truck and actually tussle against each other to grab whatever food they can lay their hands on.
“Fortunately, nobody was injured in the incident. The driver of the pickup truck panicked after the mob started looting food. He started the vehicle, attempting to move to a safe distance, but the mob followed and several people managed to climb on board and the ‘looting’ continued,” a police officer present at the venue said on condition of anonymity.
The organisers could do little to control the gathering. According to one of them, a large crowd had gathered with the hope of grabbing a free meal. However, when doubts began to arise on whether there would be sufficient to feed everybody, those at the back decided to take things into their own hands and rushed towards the truck.
Some others confided that many in the crowd were hungry after the day long fast, during this month of Ramzan, and had expected that food would be served immediately after the offering of Namaz. The organisers seemed more interested in the netas though and the chaos occurred.
Such incidents are not uncommon in parts of Bihar, particularly when more guests turn up than the anticipated numbers. There have been reports of food being looted during marriage receptions, that too by invitees. In most cases, it has been found that sufficient arrangements were not made for crowd management.