Shahrukh came for the third day straight to east Delhi’s Guru Teg Bahadur government hospital, looking for his brother who has been missing since February 25. On Thursday again, his nightmare continued when the hospital authorities showed him a dead body with bruises on the face, and insisted that it was his brother. But this was not the case.
“I have been coming here since Tuesday. My brother Mohsin went missing from Karawal Nagar that day where he had gone for work. The hospitals authorities showed me a body that was not my brother’s on Thursday. But they keep insisting that it is the same person. How can I not recognize my brother?” Shahrukh, who had come from Noida Sector 5 to the GTB hospital in Dilshad Garden, told The Telegraph Online.
There are a number of people who have been reported missing since riots began at several locations across the northeast of Delhi, a large swathe of area, locally referred to “jamna paar” or across the Yamuna river. Till Thursday evening the death toll of those killed in the riots had reached 35. And Shahrukh seemed ready for the worst news.
“My brother (married only two months back) has a business of renting out generators for functions. One of the generators had been hired for a function at Karawal Nagar on Tuesday. We found his car there. But no clue of him till now,” he said as he showed the picture of his brother’s Maruti Alto car burnt to an ash grey crisp. He said they identified the car from its chassis number.
The area around the mortuary at GTB hospital—where most of the killed were brought—presented a sight of desperation and hopelessness. Kin of those killed wailed and hugged one another, while some of them cursed the politicians who, according to them, “started the fire” and “misled the youths”. As it all happened, there was no talk of any reprisal, only peace.
“I lost my gem,” was the refrain from Queresha from New Usmanpur, who kept saying this with a look of irretrievable despair in her eyes.
She lost her son, Mohd. Irfan, 25, to a rioting mob on Wednesday night, while he had gone out to buy milk after two days of lockdown.
“He had just stepped out of the house, at some distance he was pounced upon by a mob. He was beaten up badly and his head was cracked open. We took him to the Jag Parvesh hospital nearby, but they referred him here. Here he took his last breath today,” Mohd. Furkan, Irfan’s elder brother said.
Irfan was a piece-rate labourer and used to cut cloth for manufacture of school bags.
Another harrowing story came from Yasmin of Brijpuri, whose 22-year-old brother-in-law was beaten and abducted in front of her eyes.
“He had gone out to buy milk for the kids. When he came back after finding all shops closed, he stopped at the street gate, which the residents had locked to fend off the rioters. We asked him to come from the other gate at the other end of the street which was open, but just then he was dragged away by a mob some of whom wore helmets under shouts of ‘jai shri Ram’. We got a call after 15-20 minutes saying that something has happened, and that we should reach Meher nursing home. When we reached there, we were told he was dead,” she said and showed the photo of a dead Mehtab, whose face bore marks of injuries inflicted by a sharp weapon and of burns in the entire lower portion of his body.
Yasmin said they called the police several times but no one came till 5 a.m.
Now, she can barely make it through the day. But the nights are unbearable. “As soon as it’s dusk, it feels as if the blackest of nights has engulfed us. We can’t stay at home, scared of being burned inside, and can’t go out where we risk getting beaten up with sticks. What should we do?” she said.