| March 7, 6.20 p.m. A huge congregation of devotees had gathered at Sankatmochan Mandir in the heart of the city and were performing the evening aarti with full fervour when a deafening blast drowned the holy chants and shook the temple to its foundations. Those inside the sanctum sanctorum were blown to bits and the floor was carpeted with pieces of human flesh and dismembered limbs in pools of blood. "The blast was so powerful that we felt the tremor in our houses," recalls Pushpalata, a housewife who resides about half-a-km from the temple. Inside, terrified devotees and priests were caught in a stampede for the nearest exit. With their faith, both earthly and divine shaken, there was nobody to quell the panic. The blast drew the hosteliers of the neighbouring Banaras Hindu University to the temple in large numbers, who helped in carrying the injured to the varsity's hospital. Barely 15 minutes after that first explosion, there was a second blast at the Cantonment railway station which sent frightened travellers scrambling for cover. Shock and fear in the public was further fuelled by reports of live bombs being recovered from Varanasi's Lohta railway station and from a lane adjacent to the city's largest shrine, the Vishwanath temple. The district administration, however, appeared to have been paralysed into inaction. As it transpired, most of the officers, including district magistrate Nitin Gokaran and SSP Navneet Sikera, were in Mainpuri to attend the marriage of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's nephew, Dharmendra Yadav, an MP of the Samajwadi Party. Till late Tuesday night, the city was still struggling to come to terms with the loss of lives even as the toll mounted and by the morning of March 8, the number of those dead had touched 14 and those wounded to 100. "Nobody has so far taken the responsibility for the attack, but we have got very a valuable video film which may throw some light on the attackers," Sikera told the media.  | | | | | JULY 5, 2005: Six terrorists killed while attempting to storm a temple in Ayodhya. | | AUGUST 25, 2003: Twin blasts near Mumbai's Mumba Devi temple kill 52 people, hurt 167. | | NOVEMBER 24, 2002: Terrorists raid Raghunath and Shiv temples, located about 300 m apart in Jammu, claiming 12 lives. | | SEPTEMBER 24, 2002: Militants attack Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, killing 30 people and seriously injuring 40. | | AUGUST 6, 2002: Nine Amarnath pilgrims killed and 32 hurt in a terrorist attack on a camp at Nunwan near Pahalgam, about 100 km from Srinagar. | | MARCH 30, 2002: Seven dead in attack on Raghunath temple by Pak-backed terrorists. | | Even as the stench of fear spread, prompting traders in major towns, including the capital city Lucknow, besides Kanpur, Meerut and Gorakhpur, to down shutters with thoroughfares and markets taking on a deserted look, politicians swung into action. Chairperson of the National Advisory Council Sonia Gandhi convened a meeting of her lieutenants, including Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, and was the first to fly down to Varanasi and visit the temple. The Congress, on the defensive for its recent overtures to appease the Muslim community, acted quickly to earn some Brownie points from the growing public resentment towards the ruling Samajwadi Party's ineptness at handling the situation. The Bahujan Samaj Party followed suit with supremo Mayawati chartering a plane from Delhi to reach Varanasi on the morning of March 8. She even walked into the temple-something she had not done when the Ram Lala temple in Ayodhya was targeted by terrorists in July 2005. Hot on her heels came Mulayam. But his late response to the blasts did little to strengthen or mend the shattered faith of the people and refurbished his "Maulana Mulayam" image of the 1990s. His silence over Minority Affairs Minister Haji Yaqoob Qureshi's recent fatwa against the Danish cartoonist for lampooning the Prophet has only aided such feelings. His administration has also been criticised for laxity in containing the violent protests in Lucknow on March 3 against US President George W. Bush's visit that claimed four lives. Mulayam's loss, however, can only mean one thing: the BJP's gain. With its Hindutva plank suffering a severe setback, the BJP has grabbed the opportunity to regain lost ground. Party chief Rajnath Singh and his predecessor L.K. Advani have announced nationwide rathyatras in protest against the explosions. The saffron brigade looks all set to capitalise on acts of jehadi terrorism to feather its own political nest.
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