On the highway towards Agra is the Dausa district collectorate. The first structure on the road highway leading from the collectorate is a toll booth. After that is a police outpost. This is followed by a bridge and the traffic intersection, which some two kilometers away from the collectorate and where the firing happened.
The police had imposed a clampdown in the area and the market was shutdown.
From the morning of May 24, the Gujjars were assembling in large numbers at the intersection and were setting up road blockades with boulders and concrete slabs ripped from the median.
A posse of policemen was ready at the outpost. By noon, the number of Gujjars at the intersection increased. They were also assembling along the road near the outpost. There were considerable number of women and children who were gathering on both sides of the road and were chatting under the shades. Either side of the highway is populated by Gujjar villages and people were also gathering on terraces and on the fields to either side of the highway.
Some time after noon, the Gujjars who were gathering at the intersection began advancing towards their side of the bridge and were raising slogans. The police approached the bridge from their side and the Gujjars retreated. This was repeated for some time. Around this time, some of the people who had gathered on the sides of the highway began pelting the police with stones. But this was sporadic and the police did not see any reason to be alarmed.
Image: Two among the many trucks that the rampaging Gujjars set fire to on March 23 at Sikandra.
Also read: Rajasthan's caste wars & anarchy
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