As the national capital reels under communal violence, with Hindu mobs attacking Muslim neighbourhoods with tacit support from the Delhi Police, hospitals in northeast Delhi are struggling to respond to the crisis. On 24 and 25 February, several areas of northeast Delhi witnessed large-scale violence, starting with an exchange of stone pelting between Hindu and Muslim neighbourhoods. Soon, the violence escalated, as mobs committed arson, and began firing at, beating and lynching Muslims. With the Delhi Police remaining conspicuously inactive at best and participating in violence alongside the Hindu mobs at worst, it was left to civil society to help the injured. For medical professionals at nearby hospitals, that has been no easy task.
Four photojournalists—Mahavir Singh Bisht, Mohammad Meharban, Rohit Lohia and Vinit Gupta—documented the scenes of despair they witnessed at the hospitals. Meharban and Lohia, who are in their early twenties, were at the Al Hind hospital in northeast Delhi’s Mustafabad locality throughout the day on 25 February. Gupta and Bisht were at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in Dilshad Garden on 25 and 26 February.
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