Delhi blast: Were senior citizens the target?

Inder Singh, 75, was a witness in a case that had been dragging on for nearly 20 years, and it could have ended on Wednesday. But the bomb ripped through him. His son Harjeet, who was a little away, escaped unhurt.

Outside Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, it was a mix of relief and sadness for Singh’s family. “My grandfather was just a witness in the case, and it had ended in 2001. But another party had appealed in the high court. Here too it was coming to an end. He would have soon got free of the legal ordeal but destiny had other plans,” said Moninder.

The bomb was placed in such a way that most of its victims were those standing in a special queue meant for senior citizens. A few standing near the queue also died. Nizamuddin, 77, who was also in that queue and died, had come from Meerut to help his grandson lodged in Tihar jail on an attempt-to-murder charge.

Relatives waited silently outside the hospital for news of their loved ones. But when Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi came, along with his entourage of SPG bodyguards, the agitated relatives shouted him out. They were upset that he had come to meet the victims when his party's government had notched up another failure to protect the common man against terror attacks.

Vinod Jaiswal, 54, who had been fighting a property-related case for over 10 years, also died on Wednesday morning. Like many other litigants, he had hoped that this would be the last day he would have to visit the court. "I had met Vinodji before he went to court. He was more than my business partner. He was like my elder brother," said Dinesh Bhardwaj, as he consoled Jaiswal's family. Bhardwaj and Jaiswal ran a spare parts business from North Delhi.