NEW DELHI: Haar jagah dekh liya — hospital, police station, clinics — lekin, wo nahi mila abhi tak (I visited every possible place to find him but haven’t found him yet),” said Shahrukh, whose brother Mohsin Ali has been missing since February 24. Dressed in a white kurta, Shahrukh was sitting at a corner outside GTB Hospital’s mortuary to check if his brother was among the dead.
“I have been frantically looking for him. Other family members are also trying. But so far we haven’t succeeded. We have no idea if he is dead or alive,” Shahrukh said with helplessness writ large on his face.
A Noida resident, Mohsin had gone to Karawal Nagar on February 24. Shahrukh said Mohsin runs a generator business at Karawal Nagar.
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“We found his charred Alto outside the Prachin Mandir at Karawal Nagar,” Shahrukh said. “The last time I spoke to him was on Monday morning. In the evening we heard about riots and called him. But his number was not reachable.”
When TNIE met Shahrukh, he had already seen the bodies kept at the GTB Hospital mortuary but none resembled his brother. He had been to other hospitals, too, looking for his brother but to no avail. Since the riot broke out on Sunday, there have been many cases of missing persons.
A Class 8 student who had gone to her school, 4.5 km away from her Sonia Vihar home, on Monday morning, remains untraceable.
Another man, a resident of Vijay Park in Maujpur, said his entire family is missing. Outside the GTB Hospital mortuary, it was a long wait for families to get the bodies of their relatives killed in the riots released. Saira Begum, accompanied by her sister-in-law Yasmeen, has been visiting GTB for the past two days to take back the body of Saira’s brother Mehtab, a resident of Brijpuri.
Section 144 to be relaxed
Officials on Thursday said prohibitory orders under Section 144 will be relaxed for 10 hours on Friday. The decision was taken in a review meeting called by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and attended by Union Home Secretary AK Bhalla, Commissioner of Police Amulya Patnaik, Delhi Police’s Special CP (Law & Order) SN Srivastava. The MHA, to whom Delhi police reports, added that more arrests would be made.
“So far, 48 FIRs, pertaining to clashes, loss of lives/property, etc., have already been registered and further FIRs would be registered in due course,” it said. The Home Ministry added that the East Delhi Municipal Corporation initiated steps to clean the streets.