Though the BD and the VHP leaders had said on Sunday they would hold a black-badge protest, the mayhem that reigned for almost two hours bore little resemblance to a peaceful agitation.

It all began when BD volunteers started marching on the hall carrying a few black flags and a saffron banner. Outwitting the police, who apparently thought they would try to get themselves arrested, they dodged the security ring and charged towards the hall. They entered the manager's cabin, smashed glasses, turned the furniture upside down and threw a chair at the manager, who caught it midway.

Even as the other employees ran for their lives, BD president Neeraj Jain told the police, ``I give you 15 minutes to cancel the show.'' His volunteers seemed unprepared to wait that long. ``Pull them out, we'll teach them all a lesson'', they started shouting.

Inside the hall, volunteers who had sneaked in as part of the audience kicked off the trouble by throwing sticks on to the stage. None of the contestants, however, were injured.

Outside, it was another story. For close on to two hours, before the show was eventually called off, volunteers terrorised the police -- ripping off the badges off some of them -- roughed up journalists and manhandled photographers and videographers, warning them not to shoot.

Just as they were aiming huge boulders at the hall, volunteers espied a tall, long-haired youth. Mistaking him to be one of the organisers, more than a dozen volunteers dragged him, kicked and punched him, while one hit him repeatedly on the head with a brick and another chucked a slab of stone at him. It was only when a policeman rushed to the youth's rescue that the assailants fled.

But even as the youth staggered to his feet, bleeding from the nose and the mouth, a couple of volunteers tried to get physical with him again. He finally found refuge in a nearby house.

In the meantime, the show had been called off after just one round. Though the police tried to smuggle out the organisers -- a little-known organisation called the Cops Group, comprising fresh graduates of M S University and the contestants, some of them came in for physical and verbal abuse. Volunteers kicked and boxed them even as they were being escorted into police jeeps.

When the police caned a few volunteers, the senior BD leaders rushed to the officers present, threatening them with dire consequences if ``Hindu Swayamsevaks were hit''. Earlier, the same leaders had charged up their cadres, claiming that the group dance competition would see Muslim boys dance with Hindu girls.

With the situation already out of the hand, mobile police reinforcements could do little to calm down right-wing volunteers exhorting the organisers to ``parade your mothers and sisters'' in such shows. When the police tried to whisk them away, they retorted, ``Aren't you a Hindu? It's your duty to cancel the show''.

The police had been asked to exercise restraint, DCP (South) Mohan Jha said. ``We did not use force and did not ask the the organisers to wind up the show. They did so on their own.''

The organisers, on their part, said the show was very much traditional and there was nothing obscene about the outfits the contestants were to sport.

Police go easy
The mayhem at the `Miss Vadodara 1999' contest could have been prevented had the police acted firmly with the situation. Though the police, State Reserve Police and private security employed by the organisers far outnumbered the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal volunteers, they were apparently weighed down by an order to go soft on them.

The volunteers were rounded up and thrust into police vans, but allowed to return to the scene of action as and when they wanted to. The police did not even react when passers-by were harassed or some people in the audience attacked.

Before the trouble started, the police, including J P Road Inspector Kiritsinh Jhala and Assistant Commissioner of Police M M Thakur, were seen pleading with Bajrang Dal president Neeraj Jain not to clash with police. ``You do whatever you want to, but don't go to extremes,'' a senior cop was seen telling to a band of volunteers.