Delhi violence: School guard, wife recount how daughters saved their lives

The daughters of a school security guard in Shiv Vihar lifted their parents up in their arms to help them jump a seven-foot wall on to the roof of an adjacent building as a rampaging mob with petrol bombs chased them.

Recounting the horrors of last Tuesday, Roop Singh (55), who has been in charge of the overall security of DRP Convent School for six years, said around 200 people barged into the school around 5 pm of February 24, smashing blackboards, setting furniture, classrooms and the library on fire.

The eldest of the daughters was to get married next month. But with all clothes and jewelery now gone, the wedding has been postponed.

 

"The school had conducted an exam in the morning. In the afternoon, when I was asleep, the mob scaled the wall of the school with ropes and entered the compound," he said.

"They knew that my family resides in a room on the terrace of the school. Upon seeing my wife, they ran towards the stairs to catch us," he said, still shaking remembering the yelling of the hostile crowd.

Megha Singh, the eldest of the twin sisters, shook her father up and the family ran for their lives.

"My daughters lifted us as we jumped this wall on to the roof of the adjacent building," their mother Geeta Singh said pointing to the 7-feet wall dividing the terraces. Megha's sister Varsha ran barefoot, skipping the wall in search of safety.

"All the clothes and jewellery we had bought for the wedding are gone. We have told the groom's family about the incident and the wedding has been postponed," Geeta Singh said trying hard to hold back her tears.

"We worked hard for years to put all that together. It didn't come in a day. We have nothing left now. The clothes I am wearing today belong to my friend," Roop Singh said.

Sunil Sharma, the owner of the school, pointed to a gaping hole in the roof of the room and said the rioters had set two gas cylinders ablaze.

Blackened metal frames and ash are all that remains in the room the family lived. Geeta lifts up a skeleton of a burnt sewing machine, saying "My daughter loved working on it so much.