AHMEDABAD: Human misery is big business here, at least for the compulsive gambler.
According to reliable sources, there was heavy betting in the city on the wager whether violence would take place between January 2830.
In fact, the betting had begun at a time when the situation in the city was relatively peaceful. At one or two places in the Walled City, which was still under night curfew then, the stakes were being Written with chalk on the notice board in the area and revised from time to time with the factuations in the “market,”
On Jan.29, when bomb blasts in Amraivadi and Sarangpur localities shattered the uneasy week Jong peace in Ahmedabad, the stakes registered anew high. They continued to spiral the next day when unidentified people in a Maruti opened fire on mill workers with an AK47 rifle, This was followed by a bomb explosion in Maninagar area.
It was not violence alone which was the subject of satta betting. People were even placing bets on the area where violence would eruptnext, the figures of mortality and the injured and whether it would be caused by explosions or a variety of other methods.
The stakes have been coming down since Sunday night, when indefinite curfew was clamped in the walled parts of Ahmedabad.
The downslide has come particularly after Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel announced that the Army would not restrict to itself to carrying out flag marches but open fire if and when neces.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 5, 1993
