Dinhata, Feb. 5: Eyes burning, with the tear gas hanging heavy in the air, Abed Ali sat crouched in one corner of the grounds of the subdivisional office in Dinhata, when he suddenly heard the words, “fire, fire”.

Then he heard sounds of “crackers exploding one after the other”.

“It was only when I stood up did I realise that the police had opened fire,” said Ali, a Forward Bloc worker from nearby Baronachina. “I saw policemen with their guns raised and revolvers pointed at the crowd and heard the sound of what I thought was crackers exploding.”

Then Ali saw the first body fall to the ground.

“People were running helter-skelter. Suddenly I saw someone get hit on the head by a bullet and slump to the ground. Even from a distance I could see the blood and the brains spilling out.”

Stunned, Ali kept watching till he saw one more of his comrades fall to the police bullets. “One moment, I saw a man running for safety and the next moment he was on the ground. He squirmed a little, and then stopped. I knew he was dead.”

Ali ventured out only when the firing was over. He knew that at least two persons had died. Only much later would he know that the toll was as high as five.

Ali was one of the few to make it past the third police barrier and enter the compound of the subdivisional office, which ensured his safety.

Keshav Rai, an employee of the court adjoining the subdivisional office, had also watched the proceedings from a distance, away from the bullets. He had seen the procession approach and the mob turn violent as it tried to get past the barriers.

“Suddenly, everything went out of control,” Rai said. “The crowd started throwing brickbats at the police, who retaliated by lobbing teargas shells. Then I saw the crowd attack the prison vans parked nearby to take away the supporters who had come to court arrest. They set them on fire and even managed to overturn one.”

And then the firing began.

Forty-five-year-old Ranjit Patwari from Sitai, 15 km from Dinhata, lay on his bed at the Dinhata subdivisional hospital with injuries to the head and legs. He had accompanied former Bloc MLA Nripen Roy.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever go for such a procession again,” Patwari said.