Delhi pogrom: Families roaming around mortuaries to identify missing kin

For 50-year-old Chand Rizvi, it has been a harrowing few days as he has been searching for his niece’s 30-year-old husband Mubaraq Ali. A daily-wage labourer, Ali went out for work on February 24 from his home in Bhajanpura and has not returned since then. Rizvi is frightened that Ali has been killed by a mob and they may not find his body.

Rizvi, who lives in Greater Noida, has been checking at all nearby hospital wards and mortuaries for some information on Ali as his wife has been distraught. They have three young children, a boy and two girls. At Al Hind, Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital and other nursing homes, Rizvi has been able to conclude that Ali hasn’t been brought in. But, Rizvi isn’t so sure at Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital as he is not being allowed to enter the mortuary to identify the body.

But this isn’t an isolated case. At GTB Hospital itself, there are seven unidentified bodies as of Thursday. There were two unidentified bodies at LNJP Hospital too, but they were identified late on Thursday.

All of the unidentified persons had either severe burns, gun-shot wounds or were severely stabbed and assaulted. They were all brought in as a result of the orchestrated attacks by Hindutva mobs on mostly Muslim-majority localities such as Jaffarabad, Mustafabad, Loni, Usmanpur and Ghonda. The mob attacks began when tensions escalated over the Citizenship Amendment Act.

The Hospital authorities and the Delhi Police have been denying access to most of the families and they are also being pushed around by the authorities. “How long will the Delhi Police and the hospital keep us waiting. We are poor people and no one listens to our woes. Our despair is not despair enough. I am here waiting here to find out if my 70-year-old father is in the mortuary. Isn’t there any humanity left?” said Fatima.

Unlike Fatima, Rizvi has been showing the picture of Ali to the officials and journalists at the hospital. But, to no avail. Fatima does not own a smart phone, so she has not been able do the same.

“My brother Mubarak had come from Noida to repair a generator near Khajuri. We had warned him against going to area, but he brushed aside our concerns stating that he knew the area well. He had taken the car too. The car was found burnt near Khajuri, but there was no body inside. A completely burnt body was found near the car. We found out that there was a body at GTB Hospital identified as Mubarak. But, when I checked the body, I realised it was not my brother. We are still searching for him,” said his anguished brother Mohsin.

North-east Delhi witnessed the worst violence in decades in the capital and it has left at least 45 dead and 200 injured. Young and middle-aged men roamed between Khajuri and Seelampur, armed with baseball bats, metal rods, wooden sticks and shovels. They set shops and vehicles on fire, threatening people and demanding to know if people crossing their paths were Hindus or Muslims.