CAPITAL SHAME

For three full days, starting February 23, armed goons ran riot in large swathes of northeast Delhi. Some wore masks, most carried weapons—if not country pistols and swords, then iron rods or anything hard and handy—and they had murder on their minds. At the time of going to press, the hospitals had declared 27 dead and anywhere between 250 and 300 injured.

Most violent incidents took place within a 5 km radius of the Jaffrabad neighbourhood in northeast Delhi, some 15 km from the seat of the Union