'Papa ke paas le chalo': The numbing angst of kids who lost their fathers in Delhi riots

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 TNIE reporter Sana Shakil.
Farha from Chand Bagh along with her five children came at GTB hospital looking for her Husband Sonu Dilshad. (Photo | Parveen Negi, EPS)
Farha from Chand Bagh along with her five children came at GTB hospital looking for her Husband Sonu Dilshad. (Photo | Parveen Negi, EPS)

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, a loving wife, eight daughters, and dreams of seeing his two teenaged daughters become a doctor and a teacher. His wife Imrana is determined to preserve the memory of their marriage but is unsure how she would help realise the dreams of her husband.

“He would never fight with anyone. 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,” Imrana says at her home in Old Mustafabad.

On February 24, Imrana and her mother-in-law Kaisar Jahan 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.

Family of deceased Mudassir Khan that includes his 8 daughters the youngest being just 15-days-old- is struggling to process the loss at Old Mustafabad in New Delhi. (Photo | Shekhar Yadav, EPS)
Family of deceased Mudassir Khan that includes his 8 daughters the youngest being just 15-days-old- is struggling to process the loss at Old Mustafabad in New Delhi. (Photo | Shekhar Yadav, EPS)

“Papa called mummy and daadi on the 24th…His last call was a video call with mummy 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 ‘Papa’ 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 married recently, and a 20-year-old son, apart from Khushi.

Imrana with her 15-day-old daughter Inaaya. (Photo | Sana Shakil)
Imrana with her 15-day-old daughter Inaaya. (Photo | Sana Shakil)

The stories of Shifa, Fiza and Khushi echo across many households on both sides of the divide. In at least four other cases, the children are aged between nine months to 15 years old.
While families have been left distraught, the children who lost their fathers are staring at a bleak future.

Some distance away at New Kardam Puri, five-year-old Wania and barely two-year-old Moosa refuse to eat without their abbu. Wania is in fact certain that her abbu, Furqan, a small scale handicraft artisian, who was hit by a bullet when he went out to get groceries, will return on her birthday. Moosa, who was hiding behind the curtains, walks towards the uncle who returned after offering prayers for his brother at the graveyard. Climbing on to his lap and hugging uncle Imran, Moosa stutters, “Papa ke paath le talo (Take me to father).” Imran breaks down upon hearing Moosa’s demand and tears start rolling out from Moosa’s eyes too. Moosa steps down and again goes back to hiding behind the curtains.

Two-year-old Moosa with his uncle Irfan (Photo | Sana Shakil)
Two-year-old Moosa with his uncle Irfan (Photo | Sana Shakil)

“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 kids see her crying. Wania has gone very quiet and has high fever.” said the victim’s sister Shabana.

 Lane after lane in north east Delhi, where some of Delhi’s poorest people live, the same sort of apprehensions about the future haunts these affected households. 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 the 26-year-old Ishteyaque, says Zainab repeatedly asks her to make phone calls to Ishteyaque, who like many other victims of the recent communal violence was the sole breadwinner of the family. Ishteyaque, a small-time electrician, was the third among four siblings--two elder sisters and a younger brother, who got married 15 days ago.
 
As women from the locality keep streaming to console the grieving family, children take turns to hold less than 2-year-old Zaid, Zainab’s younger brother, who is blankly looking at her mother Zeba, who has maintained a stoic silence since the news of her husband’s death.

“Ishteyaque wanted to give his children a good life. He was very happy after enrolling Zainab in school but now that he is gone, what will happen to them? We don’t know if we will be able to give them three meals a day forget sending them to good schools,” Nafisa says.

A one-room rented house of 27-year-old Babbu in Khajuri Khas’s Sri Ram Colony is reeling under a similarly painful story. Auto driver Babbu was fatally assaulted on February 25 by unidentified men and the macabre video of that assault has gone viral. Babbu is survived by his sick parents, disabled wife Shehnaz and three children—7-year-old Shifa, 4-year-old Shadaab and 9-months-old Sameer.

Family members of Auto Driver Babbu who was killed in the communal riots. He is survived by his parents, wife Shehnaz and three minor children. (Photo | Shekhar Yadav, EPS)
Family members of Auto Driver Babbu who was killed in the communal riots. He is survived by his parents, wife Shehnaz and three minor children. (Photo | Shekhar Yadav, EPS)

Shadaab and Shifa have also seen the horrific video of in which their father has a blood-soaked face and is being repeatedly hit by rods and canes. “He went out thinking he will be able to earn some money. He used to come home for lunch every day and this is what he was doing that day too when he was caught by the mob. I called him and asked him to return home. He agreed and said the situation was becoming more tense,” Babbu’s mother Tehsina says, while recalling the last conversation with her son.
 
The 26-year-old Shehnaz, who is partially deaf-dumb and has a disability from the waist, keeps on caressing Shadab’s hair, who is charmingly sitting between her mother and grandmother who is putting his younger brother Sameer to sleep. Shadaab playfully repeats what Tehsina says—names of all family members and then tells her he wants to go out. When relatives keep pouring to inquire and make discreet inquires of when the body would arrive from GTB hospital, he jumps down from the bed, ready to follow elder sister Shifa who went out with a few other kids but before leaving, he says, “Uncle ne papa ko dande maara hai…khoon nikla.”
 
Tehsina and Shehnaz start weeping upon hearing this. “We have not told the children what happened but other relatives may have seen the video in front of Shadab. What future will they have? Babbu wanted his children to study in a private school and wanted to buy a house. I and my husband are old and sick. We will die soon. What will happen to them? Shehnaz is disabled,” Tehsina says.

Just as Zainab and Shadaab, many others-- including the children of Alok Tiwari, Deepak Kumar, Dinesh Thakur, Furqan, Mohammad Irfan, Mubarak Ali, Musharraf, Rattan Lal and Sanjeet Thakur--are struggling to process the loss.

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 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.

Ishteyaque, a small-time electrician, was the third among four siblings--two elder sisters and a younger brother, who got married 15 days ago. (Photo | Sana Shakil)
Ishteyaque, a small-time electrician, was the third among four siblings--two elder sisters and a younger brother, who got married 15 days ago. (Photo | Sana Shakil)

Nirpreet Kaur, who was then a 16-year-old, has been providing assistance to the victims of 1984 riots. She says politicians and police are 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 thousands of people. We had all the amenities and suddenly we became beggars, but the biggest loss was of my father’s life. It takes decades and sometimes a lifetime to move on.  Our wounds are yet to heal and the politicians have now done this to hundreds of families in North East Delhi. I would appeal everyone to come and help the families, especially the children, of the recent violence.”

The TNIE also spoke to some survivors of the 2002 Gujrat riots who were minors at the time and are now adults.  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 Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society 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 faced, no one else faces that kind of trauma.”

Ibrahim, now working as an executive with a multi-national company was a 12-year-old when mobs attacked his family and burnt down his house in Gujrat’s Behrampura during the 2002 riots. Ibrahim says painful memories of the riots still haunts him, he avoids discussing the topic with Hindu friends and is struggling get over the past. “My parents and many relatives suffered serious injuries. I saw men being shot dead. Nobody was spared. We left that neighbourhood and never returned but the scars seem permanent.”

‘Psychological support must’

Experts agree that the kind of frenzy seen in the latest riots can leave the children 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,” Jain said.

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