Acquitted in Godhra case after 9 years in jail,Pathan battles his past,for a future

n On February 22,2011,a special court running in Sabarmati Central Jail,where the accused were lodged,convicted 31 and acquitted 63 .

n On March 1,the same year,11 of the convicted were awarded death sentences and rest get life imprisonment

Firozkhan Pathan,36,wakes up at 5.30 am everyday and goes around the city of Godhra to sell plastic bags and bakery products on a bicycle,covering nearly 25 kms in a day.

He comes back late in the evening to his ramshackle house in city’s Rahmat Nagar locality,where he lives with his 70-year-old mother,who works as a cook to support the two. This has been Pathan’s daily routine since he was acquitted in the 2002 Sabarmati train burning incident two years ago.

Pathan was picked up by Godhra police from his home on the night of February 27,2002,the same day when 59 people were burnt to death in the coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express,only to be acquitted nine years later on February 21,2011,by a special court in Ahmedabad along with 62 others,which also included Maulana Hussain Umarji,who had been arrested as the “mastermind” of the train carnage. Umarji passed away last month,at 73.

The nine years in jail completely changed Pathan’s life. “I still feel as if I am in prison. The fear that gripped me on the night of February 27 when police picked me up from my house continues to haunt me,and as I see it,it will remain forever with me,wherever I go.”

A 25-year-old youth in 2002,Pathan worked as a welder and gas-cutter with a firm on the outskirts of Godhra. An ITI diploma holder,he owned a motorcycle and earned a salary that was sufficient enough for two meals and a future for his family – wife,two children and his mother.

“Police picked me up on the night of February 27,beat me in the lock-up,and then,I was left to languish in the jail for the whole of nine years. When I came out,I realised how much life outside had changed for the worse,” he says.

His wife had left him six years ago while he was in the jail. She took their children along. But Pathan does not like to dwell much upon this tragic episode of his life. “I no longer had my previous job,and my bike had to be sold to run the family while I was away. Even worse,I carried the blemish of serving a jail term for burning the train wherever I went,so much so that I had to lie to people about my whereabouts during those nine years,” he says.

“How could I tell them that I was serving jail term for burning the train that killed 59 people? It’s a different thing that I was declared innocent by the court,” he says.

“After being released,I was looking for job to make a living. A friend took me to a person for a sales-and-marketing job but he asked about my past experience. How could I tell him that I had spent my youth in jail,” he says.

He then started selling plastic bags in the city,initially lugging heavy bags on his shoulder as he did not even have money to buy a bicycle. “An old friend gifted me a bicycle out of kindness. Now I carry bags on the bicycle.”