It’s been five days now since Superintendent of Ajaibpur Railway Station in Ghaziabad Kamal Lal Meena attended office. He and three of his subordinates, all Meenas, went on leave on Saturday as a mob of over 500 Gurjjars, agitating in solidarity with their counterparts in Rajasthan, gathered around the station.

The authorities rushed in two officers from Meerut, who are neither Gurjjar nor Meena, to relieve the four. Manning the station now, Station Master Sanjay Maheshwari and Assistant Station Master Moti Lal Gupta say while the Meena officers didn’t want to leave, the authorities feared for their safety.

“All four applied for leave on Saturday and, under the circumstances, it was immediately sanctioned,” says North Central Railway Chief PRO Vaghesh Pandey.

Far from doing anything as the mob started building up around noon, Kamal Lal says, the police stood by and watched. The word Meena in his nameplate was also painted over, though no one is sure if the authorities did it to stop the protesters from attacking the Station Master’s office or if it was someone from the mob.

Around this time, Kamal Lal, and Assistant Station Superintendents Ram Lal Meena, Gajraj Meena and Samay Singh Meena went on leave.

Last night, after the Supreme Court called the violence during the week-long Gurjjar violence a “national shame”, the Uttar Pradesh police finally registered FIRs against 1,000 protesters who had damaged roads and rail tracks around Delhi.

But sitting at his Ghaziabad residence, Kamal Lal says the action isn’t enough. “We want to rejoin duty... But first we want our identity back,” he says.

... contd.