BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain meets a person injured in the blast on Sunday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Azad Kumar Thakur will forever be haunted by the sense of helplessness he experienced when policemen on duty started to run away to save their lives instead of saving the injured.

While getting treatment with the other victims of the low-intensity blasts that rocked the city on Sunday, the Samastipur resident recalled the unbelievable scenes.

“When the blast occurred, the policemen on duty started to run from the place to save their own lives. Those of us who were injured cried for help but there was no official to help us. Only the people who had come to attend the rally carried the injured to the ambulances,” said 45-year-old.

Like Thakur, around 75 injured people reached Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) in ambulances soon after the blasts.

The emergency building was a site of pandemonium as the medical staff tried to attend to the injured. First aid was administered as soon as they arrived but it was often grossly inadequate to even check their bleeding.

Soon, the floor of the building was stained with blood. Almost all the injured needed to be operated upon. But many of them had to wait for long before one of the three operating theatres was empty to accommodate them.

Surgeons on duty later said the emergency building looked like a battlefield. “It was full of groaning patients. All of them needed immediate medical help. We tried to do our best to deal with the emergency,” said one of them.

The Telegraph managed to speak to some of the victims. Most of them were unhappy with the way the administration had dealt with the crisis.

Brajesh Kumar Mishra, an activist of the Kala Sanskriti Manch of BJP from Bahusi block of Banka district, had an even more macabre experience to narrate. He had spotted a bomb with a timer at Gandhi Maidan and had informed the police. Then, he guarded the bomb warning others to not to come near it while he waited for a bomb disposal squad to turn up and defuse it.

But no one arrived and when the bomb went off, Mishra sustained injuries in his right leg. “After a few people and I spotted the bomb, I informed the police. Senior officers had also been informed and some of them visited the site. But they could not ensure that the bomb disposal squad arrive on time,” he said.

Asked why he did not run away from the spot and save himself, Mishra said: “A lot of people from my district had come for the rally. I did not want them to be injured. So, I guarded the bomb for nearly an hour and a half.”