This is what's happening where I live...

This is what happened yesterday not 5 minutes from the trainee house. I don't remember hearing any of this, but the pictures do not lie. There was broken glass everywhere, armoured anti-riot squad vehicles, and army figures roaming the streets. They didn't shut the city down last night, but I guess they had reason to after the day's events.

The Chandigarh Tribune has an article on the background of the events. This morning's Times of Chandigarh had pictures of broken car windows, rioters, and torched motorcycles. According to the source, 4,000 families were affected by these riots. Looks like I'm in the middle of a war zone...but I can't say that I saw anything.

One very interesting side note is that there were claims that authorities put pressure on the local news channels to "go off the air and claim technical difficulties." Apparently, these channels were off for about 4 hours while the riots were occuring. We don't have TV in the trainee house, so I can't really verify this.

Even schoolboys were taking part in the action. One is quoted as saying, "Our parents brought us back from school. Then our neighbours asked us to join them -- that's it. We are here to have fun."

Did anyone else in the world hear about this?