The Indian Express            15.06.2013 

Worried NDMC rehearsed 13-sec drill to paste riot memorial notice

The notice had to be pasted at the site where the Delhi Sikh
Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) proposed to build a memorial to
the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. But NDMC officials were scared
of stirring a row with the guards at the site inside Gurdwara Rakabganj.
At the same time, they felt it would be unwise to take police cover
before entering the gurdwara to paste a warning, asking the DSGMC not to
build without permission.

After long and detailed deliberations, senior officials of the
NDMC came up with an ingenious plan. A team of four members were
selected to paste the notice. These men were then made to practice how
the job could be done in the least possible time and without any
friction with the guards.

An NDMC official said he, along with a driver and two staff
members, rehearsed the whole procedure – of running to the structure,
quickly pasting the notice, clicking a photograph for proof and then
sprinting back to an already moving car to avoid any clash – for hours
at a stretch.

“It sounds funny now, but then, we were worried of the likely
consequences. So we rehearsed. A staffer would hold the notice which
would already have glue on it. Another would carry the day’s newspaper
to provide proof that the notice was pasted on that date. The driver and
I would wait in the car and keep the engine running. After pasting the
notice and taking a photograph, the other two would sprint back and jump
into the car. With rigorous practice, we managed to pull off the entire
exercise in 13 seconds,” the official said.

The officials were worried that the DSGMC had probably got a whiff of
their plan to slap a notice. “So they had deployed guards at the site.
But it was all too sudden for them, so we managed to pull it off,” the
official said.

NDMC had planned to put up another notice –— one that ordered
stoppage of construction being done without its approval — in a similar
manner.

But an official said when a staffer carried out a reconnaissance
of the gurdwara, he found guards with swords manning the area.
Petrified, the NDMC abandoned their sprint-paste-escape plan and simply
posted the notice to the DSGMC.