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A Victim Twice Over

In the 1989 Bhagalpur riots, Mallika Begum's foot was hacked off. Today, betrayal has visited her yet again.

HE is nearly 23 and has no right foot. It was hacked off by rioters over seven years ago as she lay on the bodies of her parents in a pool of filth and slime. She has two children. No job. And no money. Mallika Begum could be any one of the thousands of riot victims in the country. Except that her story is a profile of betrayal, twice over. Before, and after the Bhagalpur riots of 1989. When friends turned foes.

In this backwater of Bihar, the soft underbelly of community coexistence in India had once again been exposed by the ferocious Hindu-Muslim riots of October 1989. But amid the mayhem and slaughter, there was hope. Sensitivity and humanity, many felt, were not just words from a long-forgotten lexicon. And the cause of that hope was Mallika Begum who was seen as the heroine of a love story that was born of the embers.

She was 15 at the time. And along with her parents and all the Muslims in Chanderi, a village on the outskirts of Bhagalpur, had taken refuge in the local mosque. On October 28— a Friday— they were persuaded by their Hindu neighbours to emerge from hiding and were offered protection till the Army could pick them up. They accepted. And were delivered into the hands of a mob.

" We had walked barely 500 yards from the mosque when the mob set upon us. I saw my father and mother, among 20-30 others, hacked to death and thrown into a filthy pond by the roadside. I ran towards the pond but was accosted by a group of sword - wielding men on the edge of the water. As I jumped in and landed on my father’s body, my right leg trailing behind me, the b... hacked my foot off below the ankle. Somehow, I pushed myself towards the centre of the pond while they used long bamboo sticks with sickles attached to the ends to try and kill me. They didn’t jump in after me though. The water was filthy: full of slime and excreta," recalls Mallika.

She clung to the branch of an overhanging tree. The next thing she remembers is being hauled out of the water by Army jawans, before passing out again. Among them was Mohammed Taj of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry. Mallika spent the next few months in hospital. By then everyone knew of Mallika— her story was in all the newspapers. She had become the face of the riots.

She went from the hospital to a relative’s house where Taj came to see her. And told her brother, Mohammed Israel, that he would like to marry Mallika. "We didn’t know how to react initially. But then he came to see us with his parents and they too were willing to accept Mallika. I had doubts but we were counselled by elders and relatives to accept the proposal. Mallika was disabled and it would be difficult to find a groom for her. Also, we were scared that the people responsible for the killings whom she had named in affidavits would not let her live in peace. And Taj’s commanding officer assured us Mallika would be looked after," says Israel.

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Mallika’s reaction was a numb acceptance: "The last thing I was thinking about was marriage." But she went along with it and says she was full of girlish enthusiasm by the day of the nikaah— March 25, 1990. Taj, posted at Ranchi, was on two months fur-lough and he took his bride back to his village in Poonch where, Mallika says, she found life difficult. "The terrain is hilly, I didn’t speak the language and because of my handicap I couldn’t really help with any work. His parents hardly spoke to me. By the end of the two months I knew they were telling Taj that I was useless."

TAJ dropped her off at her brother’s house in Habibpur near Bhagalpur, and carried on to Ranchi. To return only in 1991. "He stayed with me for a month and then went back to his posting," says Mallika. Towards the end of 1991, she delivered her first child, a girl she named Fatima Taj, after her husband. In 1992, Taj came for his conjugal rights again and spent two months at Habibpur. "We were quite upset by now and the villagers threatened to create a scene if he did not take his wife with him," says Israel.

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And after a few months, Mallika accompanied her husband to Ranchi. "The three months I spent there were the best of my life. Taj was very distant and we did not communicate much but it was a nice environment and I got friendly with wives of other jawans." But it was too good to last. By the end of the year, a pregnant Mallika was deposited at her brother’s house once again.

For the last time, as it turned out. She gave birth to a boy, Imtiaz Ali, later in 1993 and a message was sent to Taj. The only communication Mallika and her family received from Taj was a message that he had been posted to Rajasthan where it would take him a few months to settle down. After which he would come and pick up his wife and children. He never came to see his son.

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"Why would he? His object had already been achieved," spits out Mallika. Taj had already withdrawn Rs 100,000 of the amount that Mallika had received as compensation after the riots. "I got no compensation for losing my foot— which ruined my life— apart from a few thousand rupees for medical treatment. But since the newspapers had written about me, the cheque for Rs 200,000 given to our family as compensation for the murder of my parents was made out in my name. Of that, my two brothers took Rs 40,000 each and both my sisters Rs 10,000 each. The remaining 100,000 rupees was put in a fixed deposit in my name."

However, it didn’t stay very long with her. "On one of his visits to my brother’s house my husband asked me to give him the money so that he could buy land. He told me that he knew it would be very difficult for me to survive at his parent’s house in rural Kashmir, so he wanted to buy land in a town where the two of us would settle down. But I was already suspicious by then and refused. He insisted that I give him the money the next time we met and swore on the Quran that he would not betray me. I still felt unsure but he was my husband and I had to give in," says Mallika. With a shake of the head, Israel interrupts: "I too advised her to give in. After all, he was the father of her children and I thought no man would cheat his own flesh and blood."

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So in 1993, four years after the riots, Mallika Begum’s hopes of rebuilding her life were snuffed out. Mohammed Taj never got in touch with her. Not to see his children. Not to divorce her. She had been deserted. Her brothers wrote to Ta j ’s commanding officer in 1994. After a month, they received a reply from Taj’s regiment saying that though they sympathised with Mallika’s predicament, there was nothing they could do. Mohammed Taj had been court martialled and dismissed from the Army for gross indiscipline. At the same time he said that Taj had been posted to Rajasthan. Mallika was advised to get in touch with the civil authorities of Doda.

For three years, Mallika has tried to get her husband and her money back. A case has been filed in the Bhagalpur courts, but with no hope of an early decision. Meanwhile, news reached her that Taj had remarried. Now, all Mallika wants is her money back. For the sake of her childre n ’s future. And a job. To regain her self-respect.

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