It is a scorching June afternoon in Ahmedabad. Around 200 metres from Ghoda Camp road in Meghaninagar, a group of middle-aged women could be seen making their way out of an overgrown plot of land, jumping off its low-compound wall.
“Kai jovaj nai madio (no plane seems to have fallen there),” she cribs. Her companions shake their heads in a gesture of shared exasperation.
These women are not an exception.
With an Air India aircraft carrying 242 people crashing here on Thursday, Meghaninagar has been witnessing a steady stream of people hoping to catch a glimpse of the plane. Except, hardly anything is visible from the side where this plot leads. All that can be seen are trees, buildings, and mounds of the soil – the plane crashed into the other side.
But that has done little to deter the people, many of whom stop their vehicles, park them on the roadside, and hop on the plot wall.
One such person is Ranjitbabusinh Zala, 45, who has come from Chamunda Nagar. “I don’t live in this area but on hearing that an aircraft had crashed nearby, I came here to witness it.”
As the day wore on, the number of commuters stopping near the plot grew so high that there was no space left to park the bikes on the sidewalk. Some of them could be seen leaving their vehicles on the road, and striding towards the compound wall, obstructing traffic in the process.
On the other side, residents of a cluster of government housing buildings are dealing with a similar predicament. Since Thursday, hordes of people have been arriving at their complex to see the tail of the plane, which, before it was taken down on Saturday, was clearly visible from the premises.
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The society is a closely packed complex of four-storey, run-down buildings constructed by the Gujarat Housing Board (GHB) in Meghaninagar, which was built for mill workers, in 1961 when the city was referred to as the “Manchester of the East” for being a textile hub.
The block no 1 building offered a clear view of the damaged mess where the tail of the airplane was lodged – a hostel building.
With the hostel cordoned off by the police, everyone – from curious onlookers to media persons on job – seemed to have gathered on the terrace of the building as news spread that it offered a clear view.
As two cranes reached the hostel compound to extricate the tail of the plane, crowds swelled further, prompting the police to disperse them.
The building residents had even set up a small shamiana (tent) for media persons to protect them from the sweltering heat. However, local police officers swooped down on the spot and asked everyone to leave.
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Given the dilapidated nature of the building, the police say the burgeoning crowds could lead to the structure coming down. After the police told the building residents that they would be held responsible if any untoward incident happens, the locals put a lock on the gate.
Mithul Patni, a third-floor resident of the building, says, “A lot of people were interested in seeing the spot after media persons came in. Eventually, we had to stop them as the cops asked us to take responsibility if anything amiss takes place.”
Dharmish Patni, a 22-year-old resident, was seen guarding the door leading to his building’s terrace as a group of young men, soft drink bottles in hand, stood outside. “Since yesterday, around 1,500 to 2,000 people have come, prompting us to take such measures. While everyone wants to see the plane, what nobody understands is that this 64-year-old building cannot take such a high load,” says Dharmish. “We escaped the crash, now we don’t want to be crushed under the building.”
