Vadodara, May 3: “Go to Pakistan to seek police protection,” was the response from the Vadodara police control room when retired deputy superintendent Momin Khan Pathan called last night.

If this was the answer a former officer got, there was not much the other residents of Kismet Colony could expect. But they kept trying, calling the police for help for hours as a mob gathered in the neighbourhood.

The police came, after a resident of the colony had been burnt alive by the mob.

Sarifbhai Kapali, whose wife is a municipal corporator, said he has never felt so helpless as he did when the police shut out their calls last night.

But if additional police commissioner V.M. Pargi is to be believed, the force was misled as a part of a conspiracy. “We were kept busy, police ran here and there. While the police force was held up somewhere else, the mob executed their nefarious game plan,” said the officer under whose jurisdiction the area falls.

“There was definitely some well-planned conspiracy. The power failure in the minority-dominated area was part of it. I’m sure somebody is behind all this.”

While power cuts are rare in Gujarat cities, several minority-dominated areas in Vadodara suffered a blackout last night.

But Pargi’s explanation is small consolation for residents who spent a night of terror and found the police “as biased” as it was in 2002, when more than a thousand were killed in riots across the state. The police looked like a puppet in the hands of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, they said.

About two weeks ago, mayor Sunil Solanki had threatened to rope in these same saffron outfits if the police failed to provide security cover for demolishing a 300-year-old dargah that the minorities wanted declared a heritage structure, former deputy mayor Chirag Sheikh said. The demolition on Monday sparked violence that has claimed six lives so far. Solanki has denied the allegation.

Arson continued in the curfew-bound city, where two factories in the Sadar Patel Industrial Estate were set ablaze today.

Habib Hasanti, a young graphic designer, feels the demolition of the dargah was a pretext to instigate Muslims. “It was trap for the minority community. What Modi wants is to reap political dividends of communal polarisation in the city.”

Referring to the killing of Kismet Colony resident Mohammad Rafiq Vohra by a mob, Pargi said the police force is adequate for city areas but “we could not reach the spot on time. As it is, there are hundreds of distress calls to be attended”. The colony is located on the city’s outskirts.

Responding to the charge of police apathy, commissioner Deepak Swaroop said they were holding a peace meeting with leaders of both communities when last night’s incident happened.

That is no excuse for not responding to calls for help, Chirag Sheikh said. “Officials in stray vehicles abused us when we asked them to protect us,” he added.