Some were found in the sewers,
others had been bludgeoned
and there were some with their necks slit
They were as brutalized as can be.
'Don't kill me, I'm your brother.'
'You mullah! You are being our brother now?'
After that I never heard his voice, nor did I know where he was.
My daughter, Reza, who is five years old had been admitted there (at the hospital) for 15-20 days.
When we are non-existent, then what matters?
Of the people that had been killed in the riots,
this is the grave of one of them. Mehtab bhai.
He was 28 years old.
He was 28 years old. He was killed during the riots at Shiv Vihar.
And this one,
There were two brothers - Amir and Hashim.
One of them was 26 and the other 29.
This is Hashim, and that's the elder brother Amir.
This is the grave of Shahid bhai, also killed in the riots.
He was from Aligarh.
Lived here on rent, and died.
This one belongs to Ashfaq bhai.
He was killed in Shiv Vihar. In the riots.
We would have four bodies arrive in one day.
They'd come from everywhere. From all corners. It was chaotic.
Now look at it. Deserted.
This is Anwar Kassar. He was also killed in the riots. He was 58 years old.
First, he was shot. Then he was thrown into the fire.
Now, only his leg is buried here.
Only his leg came here. Burnt. It was buried.
Some were found in the sewers, others had been bludgeoned and there were some with their necks slit
They were as brutalized as can be.
The police didn't help at all.
They didn't take people out of their homes or anything.
In front of the police itself, they (rioters) were abusing.
Saying what they'll do to us.
Amir and Hashim.
I had gone to meet their family.
And I saw the bodies of the boys. They were 82 wounds on Amir's body.
It was on the 26th of February.
This was when the national media had shown that everything was peaceful. That there was nothing to fear.
The force had arrived and such. We all watch the news.
My children saw the news and decided to come home.
Before that, they were staying at Zila Ghaziabad for the past three days.
On the evening of the 26th, one of them (Amir & Hashim) called us before arriving.
My other son called back within five minutes. But their phone had been switched off.
He tried several times but their phones remained switched off. In the morning he told me about this.
I called 100 (police helpline) and the officers at the station asked us to come.
They said we have found three bodies in the sewers in the morning. You can identify them.
The bodies were in a state that I could not even recognize them.
The bodies were in a bad state.
They had brutalized my children like monsters.
No human can do this. Not even an animal can do this.
As those demons had done to my children.
(Amir) had two daughters. One was born after he passed away.
There's so much pain. What do I tell you about it?
We had never thought or dreamt that people would enter our homes and attack us.
My mother has been in Bhagwati Vihar for 40-45 years.
Although there were very few Muslim homes in the locality, we had never felt this way.
We stayed in our homes. We thought it wouldn't reach inside.
We gave ourselves this assurance and spent the night of the 24th (February).
On the morning of the 25th, we saw - on the pipeline of Ganga Vihar & Bhagwati Vihar - men armed with swords, guns, rods who were chanting 'Jai Shree Ram.'
We saw this sight and became afraid. We didn't get out of our homes even though we didn't have anything to eat.
We even ran out of gasoline. There was nothing to eat.
Our children were afraid too and wanted milk. But we weren't even stepping out into our alleys.
On the 25th, my brother Musharraf was in the house in front of us.
The one who was killed.
We signalled him to come to us.
But he said, 'Don't worry. Stay in your homes. Nothing will happen.'
In the evening, we even saw the police. We were very happy. Maybe the riots will stop now and we will be saved, we thought.
The police officers were dressed in blue.
The police officers were involved in the sloganeering of 'Jai Shree Ram' with them (rioters). And then they left.
We became more afraid.
As much as we were elated to see the officers, we became as afraid now.
Now that the police is sloganeering with them, our survival is difficult.
Only Allah can save us, we thought.
Where my brother Musharraf was,
He was stuck from all sides.
He had rioters on both sides.
My aunt and everyone else had hidden my brother and my brother-in-law inside a bed.
The rioters went to no other room but to the one where my brother Musharraf was
They broke the locks. And then attacked my brother-in-law who they had spotted.
One of them (rioters) recognized him and said, 'He is one of us, why are we attacking him?'
He held my brother-in-law's hand and took him from the other side, saying 'Keep chanting Jai Shree Ram and stay with me.'
'I will leave you afterwards in a safer place.'
Everyone wants to say their lives, as they say.
They had left the room. But then one of them said to check again. 'Maybe there must be another.'
They went back to the room.
They hit the bed. My brother jumped up scared and they said 'There's another one.'
When they were dragging him, I heard this much:
Musharraf said, 'Don't kill me, I'm your brother.' 'You mullah! You are being our brother now?' they responded.
After that, I never heard his voice again. Nor did I know where he went.
He didn't even know how to fight. He had never fought anyone or said anything that way.
He was very polite. Said nothing to anyone. No one even knew him.
And he was so young.
Him, my uncle's son and I - we used to be together.
There was only this - we used think we wouldn't survive.
In our hearts, we used to think we wouldn't survive and only Allah can save us.
I used to think of myself as very brave. I was afraid of no one, not even death. I am a Muslim, I know death will come on the day Allah decides.
But there, at that time, I was so broken...
that even my family members used to think, that their daughter who was so brave is now like this.
It felt like we had no one. As if we were thieves. As if we had sinned majorly for living in Hindustan (India).
We are Muslims. We were born here.
But they had put so much fear in our hearts, as if we are nothing. Insects in sewers.
We just hoped our families wouldn't be destroyed, generations through generations.
The rest, there are things that even after being said remain unsaid.
It was the same day as today. 25th February.
It's been one year now.
My husband had gone to attend a religious event in Kasabpure.
I have two daughters. Back then, they were 5 and 7 years old.
I received a call from one of my friends. She said that gunshots have been fired at C-Block, Yamuna Vihar.
I called my husband right away and told him to stay where he was on not to come this way.
I told him there is gunfire on this side, and that he shouldn't come.
My daughters were in the alley. I called out to them, warning I'd spank them if they didn't come up.
All of a sudden...a lot of people entered the alley. They entered elsewhere too.
They were just 20 feet away from my daughter.
I kept calling out to my daughter, asking her to come up. The more I pulled her towards me the more she tried to escape me. She thought I was going to spank her.
I don't know how but I pulled her towards me. I was shivering looking at them (rioters).
They had sticks and such in their hands. And wore stoles around their heads. Some were wearing helmets.
I was so afraid. I was alone with my two daughters. Somehow, I pulled my daughters in and bolted the door of the house.
For the next three days, I kept the door locked. We didn't even have water to drink.
We get our drinking water in filtered water cans. We didn't have any of it. My daughters and I lived like this for three days.
Our eyes turned to stone in those three days. We couldn't even sleep.
Tear gas smoke blanketed our house. There were cylinders being blown up at the end of our alley.
Just 10-15 houses away, cylinders were being blown up. The smoke from that, the tear gas and the chanting of 'Jai Shree Ram' is what we kept hearing for three full days.
My daughters would shiver and cry calling out to me.
Three days later, when it stopped a bit, the military (sic) came.
They banged on the doors.
At that moment, it felt like we wouldn't survive.That we would be killed.
We were afraid to go even go with them. Even though they kept assuring us that they would drop us where we wanted.
I even denied going once.
After they knocked on the door for hours, I relented and opened the door up.
We were afraid of them as well.
There were officers on both sides of us. I and the kids were in the centre. They dropped us at the end of the Gali No. 2 (an alley).
We were afraid that they would kill us.
But they dropped us at the end of Gali No. 2.
A few Muslims lived near that place.
They recognised me from afar as being Muslim. I was wearing whatever scarf I could find at the time.
They asked me, 'Child, where have you come from?' I told them I came from Shiv Vihar.
They said, 'Come to our home.' They gave me clothes to wear and told me to pray. They offered food and asked me to forget everything for awhile, and eat.
I couldn't raise my hand to even eat. I couldn't even swallow the food.
Even my children didn't well. They were so afraid.
During the night, my daughter became ill.
The son of the people who gave us shelter told me that there is a hospital which is treating patients for free. 'Let's take your daughter,' he said.
My daughter was getting ill. She had a fever.
Reza, my 5 year old daughter, was admitted in the hospital for 15-20 days.
The Al-Hind Hospital, where we took her, treated her for free.
Elsewhere, people give doctors money. Here, the doctors didn't take money but instead gave us food and fruits.
They even enquired where we were living and told us we could stay at the hospital itself.
I'd bring my daughter home one night and the next morning she'd get ill. I then stayed at the hospital for nearly a month or so.
It was 25th February. Tuesday. 2020.
We saw that the stone pelting had begun.
We took our families, climbed upstairs and locked ourselves in. We asked ourselves, 'Now what do we do?'
When we saw that our lives were at risk, we climbed onto our terrace.
The stone pelting kept increasing.
I told everyone in the family that let's go to the mosque. Our brothers will be there and we will stay safe. The rioting will soon end, we thought.
We thought maybe a curfew would be imposed and law enforcement would arrive.
So we decided to leave.
Everybody had moved to the veranda. I was still on the terrace.
I started peeking from there to see what was happening.
As soon as I peeked below, a bottle from 20-25 feet below came and hit me.
I thought a stone hit me. I sat down.
My daughter, Anam, saw me sitting down.
She shook me to bring me back to consciousness.
She called her mother and told her about how I was. By the time she saw me, the blood had started to pour.
I wasn't even conscious. They both brought me downstairs somehow, holding me.
The children opened the locks and we entered the mosque.
There were one or two people at the mosque. As soon as we entered, they were leaving. We asked them to stay so that we could leave together safely. But they didn't stay back. We were then stuck in the mosque.
They (rioters) surrounded the mosque from all sides. And we thought to ourselves that there was no way we would survive now.
Somehow, we climbed upto the fourth floor of the mosque.
They (the rioters) broke the gates of the mosque.
They burnt books, misbehaved, abused and chanted 'Jai Shri Ram'.
They burnt houses in the vicinity of the mosque.
And finally, around 2 or 3, they blew up two cylinders.
After that, they left.
When they (rioters) left, my children asked me to leave in the time we had. I was hospitalised for one month afterwards.
What justice now?
Take it this way.. Mumtaz Jehan (Wife of Wakil): Everyone asks for justice.
When the government isn't for us, when we are non-existent, what will you and I do?
Mumtaz Jehan: Still, justice is justice.
Yes. We are non-existent. Tell me, is there anyone listening to a Muslim? Tell me?
Mehtab's mother came a few days ago. Amir & Hashim's father also comes.
There is an old man who comes here and cries. When I see him, I shiver. But there is nothing we can do for them...