‘I ran over to find him lying bleeding near his rickshaw’

The blast near Red Fort on Monday evening tore through the city's calm, left behind not just smoke and sirens, but also lives upended in an instant.

- HT Correspondents

Some of those caught in the chaos barely had time to think - an auto driver, bleeding from his stomach, drove himself to hospital; another man called his brother once before collapsing beside his mangled e-rickshaw. A factory worker on his bike gasped, "Cylinder fat gaya hai," before the line went dead. Outside hospitals, families pressed against barricades, waiting for names to be called. In the bright glare of ambulance lights, Delhi stood once again between disbelief and endurance.

Avdhesh Mandal, 40

As the blast ripped through the air, autorickshaw driver Avdhesh Mandal did not wait for help. With a shard of metal lodged in his abdomen and his shirt soaked in blood, he climbed into his own vehicle and drove himself to Sushruta Medical Centre, more than four kilometres away. "All injured were taken to Lok Nayak Hospital - except Mandal, who drove himself," said a police officer at the hospital.

Hailing from Bihar and living in south Delhi's Nehru Nagar, Mandal shares a rented flat with close friends, six of whom rushed to the hospital upon hearing the news. "He must have told someone to call us before going into surgery," said Sanjeet Kumar, one of his flatmates. As Mandal underwent an operation, his friends and family waited outside, restless and uncertain.