Among four who died of gunshot wounds in Sambhal, a dhaba worker, sweet shop owner

Identifying those who died in Sunday’s violence as Mohammad Ayan, 19, Mohd Kaif, 23, and Bilal Ansari, 22, besides Ghazi, Sambhal Superintendent of Police Krishna Kumar Bishnoi said the four died of gunshot wounds, while claiming that the bullets were not fired by his personnel. “We have made it clear time and again that the police did not fire at anyone. We used only non-lethal weapons when the crowd resorted to stone pelting. Our own men have suffered injuries… all those who created tension will be severely punished,” he said. Bishnoi said a fifth person, Mohammad Roman Khan, too, died on Sunday, but he likely suffered a heart attack.

A resident of Sambhal’s Fatal Sarai, his family says that he had gone to the market, a few metres from home, to get sugar supplies for the shop when he was shot.

At Ghazi’s home, his mother Idris, 55, wife Tehzeeb, 27, and his four children, all under the age of 11, are still in shock. The family denies he was part of the mob that pelted stones at the team that was carrying out the survey at the mosque. “Had I known he would be shot, I would have taken the bullet,” said Ghazi’s mother Idris. She alleged the police didn’t take him to hospital after he was shot.

Ghazi was buried around 11.45 pm on Sunday in the presence of the police.

Barely 500 metres away, neighbours crowded outside the single-storeyed unplastered house of 19-year-old Mohammad Ayan, but his mother remained unaware of his death the previous morning. “They are telling me my son is sick. I made dalia for him last night, but he is still not home. Why are so many people gathered here? Is he that sick?,” asked Nafisa, Ayan’s 50-year-old mother.

Ayan, a Class 8 dropout, who worked at a dhaba in Chaudhary Sarai area of Sambhal town for Rs 150 rupees a day, was the only earning member of his family. His father died 18 years ago.

Ayan’s elder sister Reshma says that nearly two hours before his death, he had picked her up from her home near the masjid and brought her to his house in Kot Garbi to be with their mother.

“We reached home around 10 am and he left for the dhaba almost immediately,” she said.

Policemen on guard near Shahi Jama Masjid in UP’s Sambhal following the clashes on Sunday. (Express photo by Gajendra Yadav)

Nearly 5 km from the mosque in Kot West is where 22-year-old Bilal Ansari lived with his parents, four brothers and two sisters. Bilal, who ran a handloom shop, is among the dead. On Saturday night, his family said, he received a consignment from Delhi.

“The next morning, Sunday, he thought he would take the new clothes to the shop and arrange them. He did not even know that there was a survey going on in the mosque. At 11 am, a neighbour called us to say that a man who resembles my brother had been shot in the back and was bleeding. I rushed there,” said Bilal’s younger brother Ali. He says they first took Bilal to Hasin Begum Hospital in Chandausi, but the doctor there refused to treat him. “We then took him to the Moradabad District Hospital, but he was dead by then,” Ali said.

His mother, Sahana Begum, 50, alleges he was killed by the police. “The police killed my son. We will register an FIR against them,” she said. His father, Anwar Ansari, 60, said, “The police are saying that we fought among each other and shot at people. It is a lie. My son was shot in the back. He was killed.”

Also among the dead was Mohammad Kaif, a resident of Sambhal’s Tutipur Elha. Kaif, who was being treated for bullet injuries at the Moradabad district hospital, died Monday evening.

On Monday, a day after the violence, the area surrounding the Shahi Jama Masjid remained deserted. In the market to the left of the masjid, nearly 30 shops remained shut. Most houses stayed locked as well. “There is no one to buy anything. Who do we open the shops for,” said Mohammad Shamim Ansari, 45, a resident of Kot West.