Bomb scare at Gurgaon Malls

Yesterday evening there was a bomb scare at the biggest mall in Gurgaon that also hosts PVR. This writer gives a first hand account of what happened in that moment of terror.

Time: 6:18 PM
Location: Yo China Restaurant, Metropolitan Mall
Place: Gurgaon
Event: Hanging out with my wife and 9 month old son

And then the word: BOMB

It was just another of those sparkling Sunday evenings when this writer was just one of those 20,000 odd people to have visited one of the most popular malls in Gurgaon - The Metropolitan Mall. After a tiring round of shopping (and generally hanging around) in the mall, my wife insisted to have a little evening snack before we proceed to the mall on the other side of the road - the DT City Center Mall. We stayed back to have a quick bite of dimsums before we crossed over the road. Little did we know that a 15 minutes break like this would make us party to one of the biggest scares of our short lives so far.

We were just about to wrap our delicious rounds of dimsums and spring rolls when my wife noticed a couple of dozen youngsters running towards the exit doors. Exactly 2 seconds later we heard the dreaded word - BOMB and 5 seconds later there was a huge rush on the floor where we were seated. Now my preference (just like hundreds of other people there would have been) to get my family out of the place. But how?

The place I was seated became deserted in a jiffy. Everyone (including the staff) left their places and started running towards the exit. I too had my son and shopping bags to take care of. And this is when a gentleman from next door Adidas showroom approached me to help with my luggage (Thanks dude, I would love to meet you again sometime soon) and off we were towards the ground floor. By this time the word had spread about the bomb in the mall and the shops were all deserted. Ironically, even at this moment, I heard a Shoppers Stop staff member say to her equally excited colleague, "Maze aa gaye, free mein Sunday ko chutti mil gayi [Great, we got an evening off on a Sunday]!"

Now we had a choice to make. Do we run towards the very entrance of the mall to make an exit or proceed through the basement? At this moment, another gentleman (one of the people working with the mall) approached me and guided me towards a quick exit that could take me out of the mall through a short staircase route. All this while, I and my wife decided that we won't get panicky and the statement was echoed by some other college going yuppies who had reassuring words for everyone around. Meanwhile one could see the security guys trying to do their bit by body checking the mall workers as they made their exit, but this too seemed to be mere formality and just following the book. Well, can't blame anyone there!

None of us ran out of the mall! We all just "walked a little fast" hence preventing a likely stampede from happening. As soon as we reached out in the open, we realized that it was nothing short of being tense. There were thousands of people outside the mall with a dozen odd cops very much visible. One quick word of appreciation here for the Haryana police. Even when onlookers were trying to get a quick sound byte from these men, the only statement they made was - "It's huge rush in and hence the mall has been closed for a couple of hours!". None of them tried to add fuel to the fire. No irresponsible statement. No panic creation by uttering the word 'bomb'!

Another challenge now was to cross the road and get to the DT mall because this is where I had parked my car. There were hundreds who wanted to do the same and the trouble was that the crossing on the divider is just 10 feet apart. Thankfully this too went without a mishap (though in the hindsight I feel it could have been much....much worse if actually a bomb would have exploded on the either side of the streets). Well, we reached the DT mall and now had to get down to the basement to pick up our car. And again there were hundreds like me who wanted to do the same at the same time.

After a little jam at the basement (kudos to the parking staff who made a smooth exit a possibility), we managed to get out of the mall. Though here, I would want to mention about a gentleman who was driving nothing less than a Skoda with his wife and a teenager son in tow but still wanted to demonstrate his overtaking finesse in parking area, even at this hour when the need of the situation was to stay calm and follow the traffic rules. In comparison, it were the mall staff and the workers out there who turned out to be more civilized and balance minded in such a situation.

We were out on the MG road (the road that divided the two malls) and the scene was of the kind that I witnessed a decade back when DDLJ had become a huge hit. Thousands were standing in front of both the malls to see what would happen next. But the good part about the entire incident was the way everything was handled. No panic, no unfortunate incident, no stampede - a peaceful exit for everyone.

Later, on reaching home, I started receiving a minute by minute detailing from the highly placed sources in the mall. Entire area had been cordoned off after being vacated. Police had arrived in dozens. Bomb disposal squad had started doing their job. NSG commandos were in good force. Sniff dogs too were not far away. And as expected news channel vans too were stationed right in front of the malls. As per the source, "There was a SMS threat to a highly placed police official that stated that one of the malls had a bomb in it and thousands would loose their lives today. Hearing this there were instructions to get the malls evacuated while screenings in the multiplexes were stopped midway."

At the time of signing of this piece, the police is still doing the job as 70% of the mall area has been checked with no sign of any threat (thankfully)!