‘Bees saal unhone jung ladi’: Kin, activists remember Zakia Jafri who spearheaded the fight for justice in 2002 Gujarat riots

Zakia, who fought over a two-decade-long legal battle for justice for victims of post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, died of age-related illness at the age of 86 at her home in Ahmedabad earlier in the day.

She was buried in the same graveyard as her husband.

Zakia Jafri was laid to rest at the Kutbi Mazaar cemetery in Ahmedabad’s Saraspur. (ExpressPhoto/Leena Misra)

“It was just a handful of mitti (earth)..believed to be his remains, that we buried here,” says Nishrin aka Nargis, the Jafris’ daughter who is based in the U S. She came down to Ahmedabad earlier this year to spend time with her mother.

The Kutbi Mazaar is situated around four kilometres from the home Ahsan Jafri and Zakia built together at Gulberg Society that was destroyed in the riots a day after the train burning at Godhra on February 27, 2002.

Jafri was among the 69 killed in the incident in the gated society in Meghaninagar area of Ahmedabad.

Although Jafri was declared dead, neither the police nor the family found any remains of his body.

“She always wanted to be buried beside my father, and would often worry about one thing – ‘what if the end came when she was away from Ahmedabad?’,” says Nishrin.

It happened the way Zakia had wished. She usually lived with her son Tanveer in Surat, but was here with the daughter. She died around 11.15 am Saturday, a day preceded by a night of dealing with “breathing issues”.

“She began the day as usual with tea and breakfast,” shares Nishrin.

Tanveer Jafri (in white suit and fez cap), the son of Zakia Jafri, at the funeral on Saturday. (Express Photo/Leena Misra)

At the funeral, Salma, the younger sister of Ahsan Jafri, is rueful that she could not meet her sister-in-law one last time. “I was to visit her today, after the roza (fast) in the holy month of Rajab,” says the 86-year-old.

“Wish she had got justice while she lived,” says a relative who came from Dani Limda in Ahmedabad.

Till 2024, Zakia regularly visited the ruins of her home in Gulberg Society, usually on the anniversary of the massacre. “We were planning to go again, this February 28,” says Tanveer.

“She fought from 2002 to 2022…and till the Supreme Court verdict (in 2022) she had hopes that she would get justice…,” he adds.

In 2006, Zakia submitted a complaint to a lower court stating that the police had not registered a complaint against then Gujarat chief minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top politicians in connection with the violence. This led to a long-drawn legal battle that she fought with the help of rights organisation Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), becoming the face of the fight for justice for the riot victims.

Zakia’s call for justice led the top court to order a re-investigation into the nine major riot cases, including the Gulberg Society massacre, by a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which eventually filed a closure report in 2012.

In 2022, the SC dismissed her plea challenging the clean chit given by the SIT to Modi and others in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

“She would find peace whenever she visited the society and would always remember Gulberg Society and think- ‘One day I will go back to live here”,” says Tanveer.

She last visited the house last year, says Nishrin. “But she could hardly walk so she just sat outside.”

Of late, Nishrin had begun to spend more time with her mother, coming down to Ahmedabad where she had bought a flat. “She would be delighted talking to her grandchildren on video calls,” says Nishrin, referring to her two

sons.

Civil rights activist Father Cedric Prakash says, “Since the murder of her husband, as a victim-survivor, she has fought relentlessly for justice not merely for herself but all women and others who are victims of an unjust and violent system.”

Congress leaders, including MLA Imran Khedawala and former MLA Gyasuddin Sheikh, were the only politicians seen in the funeral largely attended by family members and a few civil rights activists like Teesta Setalvad of CJP, Father Prakash from Prashant, and lawyer-activist Shamshad Pathan.

In an X post earlier in the day, Setalvad called Zakia “a compassionate leader of the human rights community”.

Mourning her death, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said in a Facebook post that Zakia’s two-decade-long legal battle against the leaders of the 2002 riots “was a shining chapter in the history of secular India”. “It is a sad fact that justice has not been ensured even today,” he added.

Of the 72 accused in the Gulberg Society case, 24 were convicted in 2016 by the special court, 11 of them awarded life sentences. All of them were out on bail in 2022.

“She was content and at peace ki woh baithi nahin rahi, bees saal unhone jung ladi (she was content that she didn’t just sit back, she fought for 20 years),” says Tanveer.

“When the end came, ‘Nargis, Nargis’, she had called out to me… I wish she had lived for just a little longer…” says Nishrin.