EPISODE 2
It was 26 February. Prateeksha was coming to Ahmedabad the next day.
‘Yo Bro!‘ Prateeksha called me up from an STD booth at Jhansi Railway Station. She was doing her B.Tech from an engineering college in Jhansi. She was in final year of engineering. She was coming to Ahmedabad for an industrial training.
‘Main tere hi phone ka wait kar raha tha, what is your seat number?’
‘Jaldi likh seat no is 56 and coach is S5‘
‘What nine?’
‘Paanch yaar’
‘Tere samne kaun baitha hai?’
‘Oh man don’t ask me, this entire train is filled with people who it seems haven’t shaved for ages and since the train has stopped on the platform they are shouting “Jai Shri Ram” repeatedly and loudly.’
I could hear the chorus behind on the phone.
‘Par mujhe kya hai?’ she continued, ‘I have a novel and an upper birth I will just read and sleep. Chal I am keeping down the phone, tu aajiyo railway station time par’ she said in typical Delhi ascent with every verb ending with “yo”. She hung up the phone.
For a while I was lost in some other world, receiver still sticking onto my right ear, the line was already disconnected. I could still hear that chorus of slogan, in the praises of lord Ram. I had a phobia for this fundamentalist group as they dislike Muslims (and also people who love them). Also there was a communal tension brewing up in the whole of Gujrat, because of a program announced by this Hindu fundamentalist group to be held in March. Mummy was initially apprehensive and didn’t want to send Prateeksha to Ahmadabad, but I insisted.
*******
The train was due at 2:55 am on the early morning of 27th February at Godhra Station, but was late almost by 5 hours. On the way of journey, the group of people who were shouting “JAI SHRI RAM” at Railway Station forced one of the Muslim families to shout the same and when they refused to shout they threw them out of the train at the dead of night. Some of these men from the Hindu Fundamentalist group, who were in majority in the train, also tried to pull the beard of some Muslim men and unveil the women in burka for fun.
The train reached Godhra at 7:43 am and in a view of large number of passengers, which included 100’s of kar sevaks, the vendors on the station which included some Ganchi vendors who generally slip into the railways station to sell tea and snacks decided to raise the rate of a cup of tea, to earn some more profit. Some of the kar sevaks refused to pay the high price, and got into altercation, with the vendors and soon this altercation became physical.
A Muslim lady was waiting for the train to Vadodra along with her two young teen daughters. On seeing the fracas they tried to leave the station, but one of the kar sevak stopped her and grabbed one of her daughters by her hair, and pulled her inside the compartment S5.
Godhra is a small town with a roughly equal population of Muslims and Hindus and a long bloody history of communal tension and violence. The Muslims of Singal Faliya area, next to Godhra Railway Station, are Ganchis-a large, un educated and poor community. Singal Falia comprises of auto repair workers rikshaw pullers, auto rikshaw drivers living in slums. A tea vendor, who was a part of this altercation at the station, rushed to the basti and spread the news that a Muslim woman had been abducted and molested. It was 8 in the morning, most adults and young males in the basti had not gone to work. Angry and disgusted, they all gathered at one place along with petrol bomb and other weapons such as butcher’s knife, steel rods and axles of vehicles.
Mean while in the station the train began to pull out. A few minutes later, after it had been moved to less than a kilometer from the platform, someone pulled an emergency chain and stopped the train. Quickly a mob of up to 2000 men collected around the train and began attacking the train with stones and fire bombs. The glasses that were closed were broken. The deafening bangs could be heard to the passengers inside the train who now had lay down, relieved thanking God, after the incident at the station thinking that the worst part of their journey was over. The attack was wild and non-stop, the Muslim mob didn’t even care about the innocent women and children passengers inside the train. Their level of resentment was so much that they hold no place for emotions in their heart. To them it was the fight for their brothers and sisters, who never had mercy from this “Hindu dominated” country that never accepted them and always tried to suppress them. So for their means, if they had to take the lives of innocent women and children, so be it.
Soon the kar sevaks reiterated back. They threw stones at the mob picking them up from the railway tracks. But the mob outside was larger in number and well armed. Many passengers were carrying kerosene stoves to cook during the long journey, which made the situation worse inside the train. Soon the passengers inside the train began being unconscious by smoke and carbon monoxide. Since most of the windows and doors of the bogies were closed on one side because of the morning sun, passengers got asphyxiated by smoke and even began to be burnt by the fire that swept the coaches. The arrival of the fire fighters to the spot was delayed by a local Muslim leader, who led a mob that detained the fire engine.
Hues and cries of men women and children could be heard from outside the train. Some of them who jumped outside bathe with fire; those who escaped the fire got hit by stones. There was a line of fire on railways track and S5 and S6 were the most affected as it was the same coach where one of the daughters of the Muslim women was abducted into. Around 60 people died on spot. 45 of them were the innocent women and children.
Giving an eye for an eye, the enraged kar sevaks who escaped aghast with the deaths of innocent people and their brothers attacked the nearby mosque.
*******
‘Wer r u ??’ It was Aaliya’s message.
‘I am at home. Y r u coming to make love with me J’ I naughtily replied her back
She dint answer for next 10 minutes.
‘Are main to joke kar raha tha yaar, did u feel bad?’
‘Stay at home, plz sweetu dnt go nywer, I m goin home, abba hs cum to pic me up’
Aaliya’s father and mother had come to Anand that morning at her aunt’s place where she lived. They were taking her back to Ahmedabad.
‘Wil u tl me wats hapnin n u wnt cum to col tom?’
She dint reply me for another 5 minutes. Whenever her parents were around she always replied me late so that they don’t doubt her in any way. Like every parent, even they hated the concept of chatting through mobile phones and that to with a guy….. Her mother would often snatch the phone from her to check if she is messaging any boy.
Mean while I messaged her again.
‘Btw evn I m leavin 4 ahmdbd in an hour, I tld u na my sis is cumin. Wil my father-in-law drop me as well???’
‘Pls sweetu dont leave ur pg. stay der pls pls’ she messaged me right away. And she sounded very serious which made me get up and take notice of the message. I knew there is something terribly wrong.
‘Tel me wat has hapnd nw’ I messaged her. I messaged her twice.
‘Riots hv broken out bw muslims n non muslims. So pls stay at home’
She didn’t mention Hindus rather she wrote “non-muslims” I noticed.
I left for Ahmedabad in an hour to receive Pratiksha at railways station.
(To be continued....)
