Two years ago, 53 peo­ple lost their lives in the Delhi Pogrom, two-thirds of them be­ing Mus­lims. Shops/​busi­nesses of Mus­lim own­ers were burnt while those of their Hindu coun­ter­parts re­mained un­scathed. Mus­lim homes were marked, van­dalised and burnt. While North­east Delhi burnt, am­bu­lances and fire-fight­ing trucks were pre­vented from en­ter­ing the area. The po­lice failed to pre­vent the vi­o­lence against Mus­lims de­spite re­peated threats against the anti-CAA pro­tes­tors. The car­nage lasted 3 days. The Delhi Po­lice forced a group of in­jured men to sing the na­tional an­them be­tween beat­ings. Many con­tinue to be in prison. Like in Delhi 1984, Gu­jarat 2002, politi­cians, ad­min­is­tra­tion, po­lice and a sec­tion of the me­dia are not only dis­miss­ing facts but are fudg­ing FIRs to make vic­tims the per­pe­tra­tors. Vic­tim fam­i­lies, lawyers, ac­tivists, jour­nal­ists and aca­d­e­mics con­verge in Delhi to retell the ‘Un­pop­u­lar’ Truth. WSN re­ports. 

TWENTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD FAIZAN WAS IL­LE­GALLY DE­TAINED by the po­lice for nearly 36 hours and re­fused med­ical at­ten­tion, de­spite his in­juries. He later died. None of the po­lice­men in­volved in the in­ci­dent has been brought to ac­count for the cold-blooded mur­der. Two years on, jus­tice re­mains elu­sive.

18 Mus­lim ac­tivists, largely stu­dents are falsely framed for in­sti­gat­ing vi­o­lence against their own com­mu­nity. On 26 Feb­ru­ary 2022, Ishrat Ja­han and Khalid Saifi com­pleted two full years in prison, while those who openly ex­horted vi­o­lence against anti-CAA pro­tes­tors re­main at large. Not even an FIR has been reg­is­tered against them. This raises se­ri­ous ques­tions on the in­creas­ingly Kafkaesque na­ture of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. 

The Delhi pogrom pop­u­larly re­ferred to as the ‘Delhi ri­ots’; in its most truth­ful form is ac­tu­ally an at­tempt to­wards a large scale mas­sacre of Mus­lims, which was con­sciously al­lowed to go on for more than 3 days in the na­tional cap­i­tal of the coun­try. It is time to set the nar­ra­tive straight, rec­tify se­lec­tive and col­lec­tive pub­lic am­ne­sia and retell the un­pop­u­lar truth till all lies and pro­pa­ganda are de­feated. 

A man is beaten dur­ing a clash be­tween peo­ple sup­port­ing a new cit­i­zen­ship law and those op­pos­ing the law in New Delhi, In­dia, Feb­ru­ary 24, 2020. Pic­ture taken Feb­ru­ary 24, 2020. Photo Cour­tesy: REUTERS/​Dan­ish Sid­diqui

Aasif Mu­jtaba said that “It is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber what oc­curred in North­east Delhi two years ago. The Mus­lim com­mu­nity was at the re­ceiv­ing end of the vi­o­lence but we see that ma­jor­ity of the cases have been reg­is­tered against Mus­lims only.” 

Ma­lika, wife of de­ceased Mushar­raf broke down while nar­rat­ing her or­deal, “They were chant­ing slo­gans of Jai Shree Ram. They had weapons. They came with swords and rods. I hid my hus­band in­side the room and locked the gate. But they broke the lock. Then they pierced my hus­band with a rod. He screamed.” She sobbed. Through her tears, she con­tin­ued, “My hus­band told them I’m your brother. They said you’re a Mus­lim, you are not our brother. And then they at­tacked him re­peat­edly.” rec­ol­lected Ma­lika. “My chil­dren still ask for their fa­ther. They stole their fa­ther from them. I work as a do­mes­tic help to sus­tain the fam­ily now. How will I raise my chil­dren now?” ques­tioned Ma­lika. 

Im­rana, wife of de­ceased Mu­das­sir also ad­dressed the pub­lic meet­ing. She said, “I’ve eight daugh­ters. It is dif­fi­cult for me to pro­vide for my chil­dren. The gov­ern­ment gave us ten lakh ru­pees as com­pen­sa­tion. No amount can ever com­pen­sate the loss of my hus­band.” In the strug­gle of rais­ing 8 daugh­ters her­self, the strug­gle for jus­tice for Mu­das­sir has been lost.

“It would be wrong to call this a riot. This was a pogrom. The po­lice have filed more than 1100 FIRs in the Delhi pogrom. What hap­pened in North­east Delhi two years ago was a tar­geted at­tack against the Mus­lim com­mu­nity and the peo­ple lead­ing this are elected lead­ers of the BJP.” said Fawaz Sha­heen, mem­ber of Quill Foun­da­tion while speak­ing at the event. He fur­ther added, “They tried to in­cite vi­o­lence at Jamia and later at Sha­heen Bagh. When they failed to achieve their goals, they tried this in North­east Delhi. 

It is no co­in­ci­dence that vi­o­lence broke out af­ter Kapil Mishra gave an in­cen­di­ary speech. Just to see which com­mu­nity faced the max­i­mum brunt of the vi­o­lence, eleven masjids and five madrasas were at­tacked, van­dalised and burnt. We won’t be­lieve the lies of the Delhi Po­lice. The truth will be re­mem­bered.” Va­lik, a res­i­dent of North­east Delhi who lost vi­sion due to an acid at­tack also nar­rated his agony, “We went to the masjid in des­per­a­tion to take refuge. They threw acid on my face. It burnt my eyes. We called every­one. No one came to help us.” The col­lec­tive feel­ing of aban­don­ment, of no­body com­ing to their res­cue in a lo­cal­ity they had called their home for years, is ir­rec­on­cil­able. The Mus­lims of North­east Delhi feel be­trayed. A be­trayal that is im­pos­si­ble to rec­on­cile with.

“I was shot in the spine. At the hos­pi­tal, all I could do was cry. The doc­tor told me that the bul­let that hit me had pel­lets in it and that it hit a nerve near the spine. I was well be­fore but in a day, my life was up­turned”, rec­ol­lected Sameer, a man in his twen­ties who was shot in the spine. Since then his lower body has been paral­ysed. He does­n’t feel he has a chance at life. He added, “I was in class 9 at that time. My ed­u­ca­tion has been ru­ined. My fam­ily had to sell our plot in our home­town for pay­ing hos­pi­tal bills for my treat­ment. The gov­ern­ment only gave two lakhs as com­pen­sa­tion. What will I do with it? My life has been ru­ined. I won’t be able to work and earn for my­self.” He is de­pen­dent on his fam­ily. 

Clos­ing the first ses­sion, Aasif Mu­jtaba as­serted, “There are 755 FIRs in the North­east Delhi vi­o­lence. There is one spe­cific FIR called FIR 59 that talks about a con­spir­acy to in­sti­gate ri­ots by Mus­lims. I call this a con­spir­acy in a con­spir­acy by the Delhi Po­lice to ha­rass and crim­i­nalise Mus­lims.” 

The next ses­sion was mod­er­ated by Bano­jy­ot­sna Lahiri who em­pha­sised, “The Delhi Po­lice is do­ing a com­mu­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The po­lice did­n’t file an FIR against Ragini Ti­wari who was do­ing a live show and call­ing for vi­o­lence that time.” Nar­gis Saifi, wife of in­car­cer­ated Khalid Aifi said, “I’m blank af­ter lis­ten­ing to the sto­ries of those who lost their fam­ily mem­bers dur­ing the Delhi ri­ots. There should be an in­ves­ti­ga­tion against Delhi Po­lice for tor­tur­ing Khalid. She added, “The po­lice aren’t in­ves­ti­gat­ing, rather they are cook­ing up sto­ries. Me­dia chan­nels like Aaj Tak and oth­ers pre­sented Khalid as a crim­i­nal and ter­ror­ist. Khalid was only try­ing to help in­jured peo­ple get treated at Al-Hind Hos­pi­tal. But he was ar­rested. On the other hand, Kapil Mishra is out and free.” 

Prab­hjit Singh, a jour­nal­ist with Car­a­van In­dia, said “The gov­ern­ment was afraid that the anti-CAA move­ment was­n’t get­ting com­mu­nal. The gov­ern­ment was afraid that peo­ple were talk­ing about the Con­sti­tu­tion. I must say that the Delhi Gov­ern­ment also failed to stop the city from burn­ing and pro­tect­ing lives. There is no ac­count­abil­ity from the po­lice.” 

Ishrat Ja­han’s close friend, Saba­hat said “Ishrat is a very bold and dy­namic per­son. It has been al­most two years now since Ishrat was sent to jail. She has been dis­crim­i­nated against in jail. She was sent to jail for stand­ing up for her com­mu­nity and pro­tect­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion. And for this, she was sent to jail.” 

Sumedha Pal, the jour­nal­ist with the Wire, said “The main­stream me­dia has been aid­ing the ma­jor­ity in their at­tack against the Mus­lims. They aided the gov­ern­ment in de­mon­is­ing the Mus­lims who were protest­ing for their right to equal cit­i­zen­ship. They pre­sented rights ac­tivists as ter­ror­ists. Each day, the hate­ful prime time de­bates of main­stream me­dia re­mind us that there is an im­pend­ing geno­cide.” She added, “There is a need to show the sit­u­a­tion and what peo­ple are go­ing through in North­east Delhi with sen­si­tiv­ity. The onus lies on us to re­port the truth and to re­port is with­out any bias.” 

Kawal­preet Kaur, an ad­vo­cate, said “The cen­tral gov­ern­ment sub­mit­ted an af­fi­davit in the court and said that they are not li­able for any­thing. This is the con­di­tion. These two years have been painful and dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who lost their fam­ily mem­bers in the vi­o­lence and whose loved ones are in jail.”

Za­farul Is­lam, for­mer chair­man of Delhi Mi­nor­ity Com­mis­sion, said “There should be a proper ju­di­cial com­mis­sion to look into the Delhi Vi­o­lence. There must be an in­ves­ti­ga­tion against peo­ple like Kapil Mishra, Ragini Ti­wari and oth­ers who in­cited the vi­o­lence. And if we fail to speak on such mat­ters, in­jus­tices will keep on hap­pen­ing.” He added, “The in­ten­tions of this gov­ern­ment are not good. Peo­ple need to speak up the truth.”