Documentary looks at lynchings across India

“After the Eid namaz, there was an announcement from the local mosque that there will be a janaza (funeral in absence) for Junaid,” he says.

For Ashfaque and his friend Shaheen, also a Kerala resident, Junaid’s killing was the “tipping point”. “We had this constant thought that we will have to do something,” Shaheen (26), an independent filmmaker, says.

Over the next few months, the duo ideated a documentary on the lynchings across the country, and roped in Furqan Faridi (28), a friend from Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda.

On November 2017, they fanned out to document the families seven lynching victims in Una, Dadri, Alwar, Latehar, Ramgarh, Bharatpur and Ballabgarh.

The 42-minute-long documentary features testimonies of victims’ families and mob attack survivors.

The screening at the Press Club of India on Saturday was attended by independent MLA from Guajarat Jignesh Mevani, academic Apoorvanand, Junaid’s family and Rafique Khan, who was beaten up along with Pehlu Khan.