WSN Ed­i­tor writes an Open Let­ter to the brother of 15-year-old Ju­naid Khan from Nuh, Haryana who was killed in a cold-blooded pub­lic mur­der in a train from In­di­a’s na­tional cap­i­tal Delhi to their home.

Dear Faisal Khan
Aadab!
Read­ing through the bru­tal ac­count of the beat­ing of your broth­ers and the even­tual death of your el­der brother Ju­naid Khan in the train has be­numbed me. I am ashamed of my­self. I am ashamed of liv­ing in a so­ci­ety which con­tin­ues its life as if noth­ing has hap­pened.

Through you, I would like to con­vey my con­do­lences and feel­ings to your par­ents, your sib­lings and the res­i­dents of your vil­lage Khad­dawali, near Nuh, at the loss of a great young man who at 15 showed qual­i­ties which many would not even dream about. How many stu­dents at the age of 15 know any­thing more than their text­books and songs of Bol­ly­wood?

I was amazed that at the age of 14 plus, your brother could re­cite all the 80,000 verses of the Quran with­out read­ing from it and he spent the last month of his life recit­ing the same to his vil­lagers, day af­ter day dur­ing the month of Ramzan. I do not know how un­com­mon this is amongst those who at­tend the madrasas, but I think it is cer­tainly a feat by any stan­dard and it is no won­der that Ju­naid Khan was a hafiz (one who knows the Quran). How many times does one come across a young Mus­lim who likes play­ing cricket and who eats soya-biryani and not chicken or mut­ton biryani? I am cer­tain that Brah­mins eat­ing meat are more than Mus­lims eat­ing veg­e­tar­ian foods.

I cried in­con­solably when I read Harsh Man­der’s be­fit­ting trib­ute to your brother en­ti­tled “Ju­naid my son” in the In­dian Ex­press.

“I was amazed that at the age of 14 plus, your brother was Hafiz (one who knows Quran) Ju­naid Khan, could re­cite all the 80,000 verses of the Quran with­out read­ing from it and he spent the last month of his life recit­ing the same to his vil­lagers, day af­ter day dur­ing the month of Ramzan. How many times does one come across a young Mus­lim who likes play­ing cricket and who eats soya-biryani and not chicken or mut­ton biryani? I am cer­tain that Brah­mins eat­ing meat are more than Mus­lims eat­ing veg­e­tar­ian foods.”

Faisal -at 12 years, you are too young to fathom the ways of the world, but as your fa­ther Jalalud­din had warned Ju­naid be­fore he stepped out of the house on that fate­ful day, “Be­ware, the times are bad, this coun­try is now mov­ing to a sys­tem which you and I can­not un­der­stand. We are be­ing sucked in.” Every­thing is black and white. Ei­ther you are with “them” or you are “not with them.” What used to hap­pen in Gu­jarat or Delhi or Dadri once in awhile is now a stun­ning daily oc­cur­rence! Though we have bold cam­paigns like “Not in my name”, I dont know how they will save an­other Ju­naid Khan, with the Prime Min­is­ter con­vert­ing it into a vi­o­lence-non-vi­o­lence is­sue and un­der­stat­ing the stark day to day re­al­ity un­fold­ing be­fore us every day.

Hu­man­ity died at the Asoti rail­way sta­tion where no one, re­peat No One, came for­ward to help your bleed­ing brother Ju­naid -no ven­dor, no pas­sen­ger, no on­looker, no coolie, no sta­tion staffer, no taxi dri­ver, no auto dri­ver, no rail­way mo­tor­man, no ticket checker. Not only did they not help but they turned their backs and be­came in­hu­man can­ni­bals and even the fol­low­ing day said: “they did not see or hear any­thing”. Such crass be­hav­iour can only put hu­man­ity to shame and such a town and city where such peo­ple live should be smashed into smithereens. A poet once said, “Set fire to a city which does not wake up to a call of a fel­low hu­man for jus­tice.”

This hap­pens be­cause the state does not wake up. It hap­pens be­cause the Rail­ways do not have a proper sys­tem of travel for the poor. It also hap­pens be­cause the state ma­chin­ery pro­tects killers, not vic­tims. It hap­pens be­cause no judge awards ex­em­plary dam­ages to the In­dian Rail­ways for killings in the trains, on their tracks and plat­forms.

“Hu­man­ity died at the Asoti rail­way sta­tion where no one, re­peat No One, came for­ward to help your bleed­ing brother Ju­naid -no ven­dor, no pas­sen­ger, no on­looker, no coolie, no sta­tion staffer, no taxi dri­ver, no auto dri­ver, no rail­way mo­tor­man, no ticket checker.”

In this hour of grief, I would like to share that the Sikh com­mu­nity is not new to killings in trains. In 1947, we had the trains to Pak­istan and the trains from Pak­istan made im­mor­tal by Khush­want Singh’s fa­mous his­tor­i­cal novel, “Train to Pak­istan.” In 1984, there were trains to Delhi and from Delhi wherein Sikhs were pulled out in ex­actly the same man­ner as your brother -maimed, killed and in some cases burnt alive. The sta­tions of Nan­gloi and Tugh­lak­abad will al­ways bear the scar of the stigma of be­ing killing tracks of high-rank­ing Sikh mil­i­tary of­fi­cers who were bru­tally killed here af­ter be­ing dis­armed.

“A poet once said, “Set fire to a city which does not wake up to a call of a fel­low hu­man for jus­tice.””

Like your brother, many in this coun­try have gone to Delhi not to re­turn back. Delhi is a city of Djinns as called by William Dal­rym­ple. Like your el­der brother who is now scared to travel by the same Delhi-Mathura pas­sen­ger, I too am on full alert when mov­ing into Delhi or out of Delhi in any lo­cal or mail train. The lumpens en­ter­ing these trains from ei­ther side are the solid vote banks of po­lit­i­cal par­ties; they are a bunch of trained thugs who are used by po­lit­i­cal par­ties to fur­ther their hid­den agen­das. From Dadri in Ut­tar Pradesh to Bal­lab­garh in Haryana, the In­dian Rail­way au­thor­i­ties suc­cumb to the mob­sters. No ticket check­ing, Rail­way Po­lice only as a name­sake and ab­solute crim­i­nal be­hav­iour in the un­re­served cab­ins or in the re­served coaches. How else does one ex­plain that the old man to whom Ju­naid Khan of­fered a seat was seen egging the killers when they were beat­ing your broth­ers?

If the po­lice find him (what a joke!), I wish to see deep into the eyes of this in­di­vid­ual look­ing so deep that I can see the in­hu­man­ity which was re­ferred to by William Gold­ing in his award-win­ning novel, “Lord of the Flies”.

“Don’t let the killers go scot free. Shame them. Shame their fam­i­lies. Shame their pro­mot­ers. Shame their pro­tec­tors. Let them know what Bha­gat Kabir said, “Jo pa­dosi ke huha so apne bhi jaan.” -what has hap­pened unto your neigh­bour can hap­pen to you as well. Be­ware!”

The bar­bar­ians who killed your brother de­serve no mercy. Un­der­stand­ably, your el­der brother Hashim in whose lap your brother Ju­naid breathed his last and Mausim are get­ting night­mares. Tell them that they need to be bold and brave. Tell them that they need to do every­thing they can to iden­tify not only those who knifed your brother but also every­one in that train cabin who were not mute spec­ta­tors but ac­com­plices in that bru­tal crime against hu­man­ity. Iden­tify every­one who was at Asoti rail­way sta­tion and has cho­sen to stay silent. Put all their faces and names on a Face­book page and let hu­man­ity know what lurks around them. Every time you pass through that rail­way sta­tion, cul­ti­vate your anger and avow to get jus­tice, come what may!

Don’t let the killers go scot free. Shame them. Shame their fam­i­lies. Shame their pro­mot­ers. Shame their pro­tec­tors. Those who are still silent, let them know what Bha­gat Kabir said, “Jo pa­dosi ke huha so apne bhi jaan.” -what has hap­pened unto your neigh­bour can hap­pen to you as well. Be­ware!

Yours in grief

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, World Sikh News