The communal frenzy in northeast Delhi has left many children of both communities orphaned and they are struggling to come to terms with their loss.
Many are too young to even comprehend what’s happening around them even as the families that have lost their breadwinners stare at a bleak future, finds Sana Shakil
Shifa’s last memory of her father Mudassir Khan is a video call. But at least, the 15-year-old has a memory. Mudassir’s youngest daughter Inaaya is all of 15 days — too young to know her father, who was killed in the orgy of mindless communal violence that erupted in the northeastern part of Delhi last Sunday.
Thirty-five-year-old Mudassir, a small-time scrap dealer in old Mustafabad, has left behind his old parents and wife Imrana to take care of his eight daughters.
But an inconsolable says she doesn’t know how she will do that, let alone fulfilling his dream of making their two teenaged daughters a doctor and a teacher.
“Our marriage of 16 years was perfect. I have studied only till Class 8. How will I take care of them? Nobody has offered me any support,” she says.
On February 24, Imrana and her mother-in-law repeatedly urged Mudassir not to leave home for work. But being the sole breadwinner in the family, he perhaps did not have the luxury of sitting at home and losing out on business. He left home, stayed at a relative’s place for the night at Kabir Nagar. He was shot dead while coming back home next day.
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“Abbu called ammi and daadi on the 24th…His last call was a video call with ammi and me on the 25th. His hand was injured... He said the situation was worsening,” said Shifa, the eldest among eight siblings.
“Everybody is trying to console us. Everyone is trying to make sense of it,” added her sister Fiza, 13, struggling to hold back tears.
“Papa used to hug me every day,” said Shifa. Fiza recalls how abba would tease her about her weight.
In another locality, Maujpur, another 15-year-old, Khushi is too disconsolate to even talk. Her father Vir Bhan, was shot dead by rioters on February 24 when he was going to get medicines for his wife.
Khushi, who a relative says was her father’s “favourite child”, is still battling to come to terms with the loss.
Bhan is survived by an ill wife, a 25-year-old daughter who got recently, and a 20-year-old son, apart from Khushi.
“Bhan was the only earning family member. We do not know if the children will be able to continue their education,” said Bhagat Singh, his brother-in-law.
The stories of Shifa, Fiza and Khushi echo across many households on both sides of the divide. In at least four other cases, the orphaned children are between 20 days to 15 years old.
While families have been left distraught, the children orphaned by the violence are staring at a bleak future.
While time may heal their wounds on the surface, the shock of seeing their loved ones being brutally murdered, their houses being gutted and their universe being turned upside down can see many of these children left traumatised through their lives.
‘It takes a lifetime to heal’
With the latest communal violence being compared with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, this newspaper also spoke to some of the victims who were children at that time and are still scarred by the memories of the horror that was unleashed in the capital over 35 years ago.
Mohinder Singh, now a businessman, was an 11-year-old when the genocide of the Sikhs riots took place.
Singh saw his father Ameer Singh being assaulted to death by a frenzied mob in Paharganj on November 5, 1984, when the family was trying to flee to Punjab to save their lives.
He still gets nightmares about the day but says he has not given up on humanity.
“I still remember the horrific incident and even the slogans that my father’s killers were chanting. My mother was a housewife till the time he was alive, but to feed me and my five siblings, she started working. How else could we have survived? We were removed from private schools and put in government schools. I could not complete my education as being the eldest, I wanted to help the mother in running the house. It has been very difficult but we learnt to survive. We hold no enmity against any community,” says the 47-year-old.
Nirpreet Kaur, who was then a 16-year-old, now provides assistance to the victims of 1984 riots. She says politicians and police were to be blamed for the riots then and now. Nirpreet, who witnessed her father being butchered and her house being reduced to ashes, says it takes a lot to move on.
“The riots changed my life and the lives of many others. We had all the amenities and suddenly we became beggars, but the biggest loss was my father’s death. It takes decades and sometimes a lifetime to move on. I would appeal everyone to come and help the families, especially the children, of the recent violence.”
‘Psychological support must’
Experts agree that the kind of frenzy seen in the latest riots can leave the children, especially those orphaned, scarred for their life. While those in the position of authority have already faltered on controlling the situation in time so as to prevent casualties, the least they can do now is provide succour to the children to come out of the psychological trauma.
According to psychologists, the impact of violence on children increases with direct exposure and society — government, relatives, media—together needs to ensure that children are not reminded of the violence. Several videos have emerged showing how the violence has wrecked the lives of hundreds of people.
Experts have called for banning of telecast and circulation of videos showing violence.
“We need to have a government set-up in violence-hit areas where people should be provided psychological support and government should be stringent in banning all forms of videos showing violence. People do not know the kind of damage they are causing by circulating these videos which young children have easy access to,” said Dr Kushal Jain, Director, Centre for Behavioural Sciences.
He added that discussing traumatic incidents before children should be avoided.
“It is difficult, but we need to protect the children. Relieving those incidents, again and again, will create painful memories that will be difficult to forget and move on in life.
“Some children may get over it and realise that it could happen to anyone but some will latch on to these for life and constantly blame the other community for destroying their lives. This is something that can be a new source of fanaticism in the country, if not dealt with properly.”
Whether the traumatic experience of a riot festers communal feelings in young minds or not, it can definitely leave some of them struggling throughout their lives to reconcile with their loss.
Shareef Khan, whose mother Khairun Nisa, elder brother Salim Khan and uncle Safdar Khan were killed in the Gulberg Society in the 2002 Gujarat riots, is now 31 years old and says he is still struggling to come to terms with the tragedy.
Shareef, who was then a 13-year-old boy and has lived in a relief camp for about two years says, “I have never visited the area where they were killed and I get nervous around strangers. I was very close to both my mother and my brother. I just hope and pray that what I face, no one else faces that kind of future.”
Making sense of loss
The rioters unfortunately spared no thought for the innocent children. At New Kardam Puri, five-year-old Wania and two-year-old Moosa refuse to eat without their abbu. Wania, is sure that her abbu, Furqan, a handicraft artisian who was hit by a bullet when he went out to get groceries, will return on her birthday.
“The kids are shocked. We do not know how to break the news to them. But we think they might have begun to make sense of the tragedy. Their mother is in shock and they see her crying. Wania has gone very quiet and has high fever,” said the victim’s sister Shabana.
Lane after lane in northeast Delhi, where some of the poorest people live, apprehensions about the future haunts the affected families, both Hindu and Muslim. Five-year-old Zainab looked clueless of what was happening around her at home in Kabir Nagar.
Wearing a blue salwar kameez, she roamed around with her cousins. Moments after her father Ishteyaque’s body was taken away for burial.
Nafisa, mother of Ishteyaque, an electrician, says Zainab repeatedly asks her to make phone calls to him.
The riots have changed the lives of many others who are struggling to process the loss such as the children of Sanjeet Thakur, Vir Bhan, Dinesh Thakur, Alok Tiwari, Mubarak Ali, Dinesh Kumar Musharraf, Deepak Kumar and Irfan —who are all aged less than 10.