Dustbins in Delhi turned upside down on Tuesday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, Sept. 16: Delhi police have solved the problem of how to prevent terror attacks. They have turned all the public garbage bins upside down and tied them together in pairs so that they are completely unusable, even by terrorists.

Which means Delhi’s streets are now a stinking mess, with polythene bags, stale food, wrappers and plastic bottles scattered all across them.

The police don’t care: at least the militants cannot plant their bombs in the green and blue vats as they had done to trigger Saturday’s blasts that killed 21.

All the bins had been overturned today at Central Park in Connaught Place and Barakhamba Road, their rotting contents emptied just under them. Fresh waste lay strewn all around, with tourists busy clicking the bins and garbage on their cellphone cameras.

“I went to the Janpath market yesterday. The twin garbage bins in the middle of the market have been turned upside down and the litter is scattered everywhere. The stench is terrible,” student Sanjay Singh said.

Police officers said they had no choice. “Earlier we would alert citizens to keep an eye out for abandoned cars, motorbikes, bicycles and bags on roads, platforms, trains or buses. But how can they keep a tab on what’s being thrown into garbage bins?” an officer said.

“Anyway, the terrorists chose the bins because the bombs would soon be covered by other waste thrown by people. How many bins can we man round the clock?”

The bins were the most visible symbol of the state government’s Clean Delhi Campaign, launched in 2003-04, which had been fairly successful in keeping litter off the streets and pavements.

The green bins were for vegetable and plant waste and stale food, and the blue ones for paper, plastic bottles, straws, rubber, cotton and pieces of wood or linen. According to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the city produces 5,000-6,000 tonnes of garbage every day.

One of the reasons the militants targeted posh localities like Connaught Place was that police don’t allow rag-pickers to enter these areas after sunset – so nothing gets removed from the bins.

The unexploded bomb kept in a bin on the India Gate lawns was detected by a rag-picker while he was rummaging through the vat for plastic bags.

“The police don’t let us anywhere near the upscale markets; and now see, they are sitting beside the garbage bins and guarding them. Don’t they have anything else to do?” a rag-picker said.

The rag-pickers are now foraging the streets rather than the vats for a livelihood, but municipal sweepers are grumbling.

Ramesh, who works at Connaught Place, said: “Till a few days ago, when most of the garbage would be in the bins, we had to sweep the roads only to remove the scraps of paper and dry leaves. Now we have to clean up a mountain of litter.”