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Journalism of Courage
Nothing will bring back her dead husband but for 28-year-old Ruksana Salimbhai Sheikh, hope has been born. She’s one of the seven who survived the Ambica Society massacre, in which 13 Muslims were killed near Gujarat’s Kalol town—11 burnt alive and two stabbed—by a rioting mob as they were fleeing in a van on March 1, 2002.
‘‘I knew I would live to see the perpetrators, including PSI R J Patil, behind bars,’’ says Ruksana, as news of the PSI’s arrest trickles in to her new home on the outskirts of Kalol.
As The Indian Express reported today, Patil admitted to having the 13 bodies burnt without sending any specimens for forensic analysis, without making any attempt to look for relatives.
Ruksana, who lost her husband and three other members of her family in the carnage, escaped by hiding in a nearby field for more than eight hours.
‘‘Late at night, I reached Kasba area on the outskirts of Kalol where a relief camp had been set up not knowing where the other members of my family were,’’ she says. ‘‘I had seen my husband being attacked by the mob with swords,’’ she recalls.
A few days later, says Ruksana, she and other family members approached the Kalol police to trace her husband. ‘‘Patil shooed us away. We were shattered. I was trying to find where my husband’s body had been kept, now I have got my answer,’’ she says.
A stone’s throw away from Ruksana’s one-room hutment, provided by the relief committee, is the house of Yunus Ismail Shiekh, who lost his wife and son. ‘‘Since I used to come to Kalol for daily business dealings and knew a number of people here, I could immediately identify some of the attackers who intercepted our van near Ambica Society,’’ Yunus says.
He and his 11-year-old son Bilal managed to escape the armed attackers but he lost wife Zubeida and son Rizwan. ‘‘A few days after the incident when I approached Patil for the bodies, I was told they had been left badly charred by the rioters, that nothing was left. He simply did not listen,’’ he remembers.
Survivor after survivor, each one blames the police. ‘‘It’s God’s justice. Patil showed scant respect for the bodies, and today he’s languishing in prison. Although it’s a little late, things seem to be moving now,’’ says Madina Shiekh, who lost her husband Yaqoob and two relatives in the massacre.
Haroon Rashid, another survivor, who was driving the van which was attacked insists that the survivors repeatedly approached Patil for whereabouts of their relatives but there was no response.
Other survivors seem to have left justice to God. Sultana Shiekh, who was raped, left for a dargah near Dholka a few days back. ‘‘She has been in an acute state of depression. But she’s aware of Patil’s arrest and is hopeful of getting justice,’’ says Yunus, her neighbour.
The survivors hope that the SIT team led by senior IPS officer Neerja Gotru Rao continues with the investigation. ‘‘We know that not many would be happy with her for she has ensured that the accused are arrested and thrown behind bars. A glimmer of hope has emerged for us from this re-investigation. Hope is not shut out,’’ says Saira Rafiq Shiekh, who lost two of her relatives in the carnage.
