As election nears, sanitation drive 'markings' gives Ahmedabad residents the shivers

Residents of Paldi, a small suburb in Ahmedabad received a scare after they found their front doors marked with a cross on Monday. While locals initially thought it was targetting of a particular community, they later discovered that it was part of a sanitation drive, The Times of India reported.

According to the report, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation health workers had marked the buildings in red as their stock of stickers to mark societies that got exhausted.

Residents, however, expressed fear as such markings in the past were used in the past as a way to identify residents to be targeted during the 2002 communal riots. Paldi was one of the areas that witnessed violence in 2002.

Residents had even written to the Election Commission and the polic chief AK Singh fearing that the motive was to disrupt peace in the area. However, Singh informed that the markings were made by sanitation workers, but added that an inquiry will be conducted. "If the houses are being marked as part of a garbage collection drive, we will send our teams to ensure that the residents are informed about it," Singh told TOI.