Partisans Of Humanity

In February 2020, ­following months of peaceful ­protests against the ­Citizenship ­(Amendment) Act and the ­government’s plan to update the National Register of Citizens, ­widespread mob violence ripped through north-east Delhi, killing more than 50 people and injuring over 300. The five-day bloodbath left a deep scar on the capital’s social fabric and sowed more seeds of mistrust among its ­communities. But there were also some who risked their lives to save others ­targeted by the mobs. Their religious identity did not stop them from ­reaching out to those who didn’t share their faith, but needed their help. Here are some of their stories that tell a tale of humanity ­beyond the dividing lines of faith.

Mohinder Singh 50
Gokalpuri

The threats haven’t stopped coming since he saved the lives of his Muslim neighbours

Sunny Tech Mart is famous in Gokalpuri market not so much for the electronic goods it stocks as for the good deeds of its owners during last year’s ­violence. Mohinder Singh and Inderjeet Singh, the father and son who have been running the shop for several years, risked their lives to move more than 70 Muslim families on their two-wheelers to safer locations.

“Stone-pelting between the two communities started at the Muslim-dominated Kardampuri Chowk on February 24, around 4 in the evening. When the police chased them, the rioters entered our area,” says Mohinder. Sixty-odd Muslims had gathered in a mosque behind Mohinder’s shop. Some of them had stayed back after the evening namaaz, and were joined by others who came there in panic after the rioters entered the area. “There were around 15 households of Muslims around my shop. I could sense their fear and went to meet them,” says Mohinder, whose residence is on the floor above the shop and can be accessed from the back alley. While the rioters were on the street in front of the ­building, Mohinder asked some of the Muslim families, especially women and kids, to enter his house from the back side and keep calm. “We took them on our bikes to Kardampuri area, two or three at a time. It took us about 20 trips to shift them all there,” he says.

Mohinder tied turbans on the heads of the young Muslims so they would look like Sikhs and not be ­attacked. “That’s how we evacuated all of them by around nine in the evening. Soon after, the rioters looted and burnt their houses,” he says, adding that he would have helped his neighbours in the same way in a similar situation even if they were Hindus. “What I did had ­nothing to do with their religion. For me, they are my neighbours and good human beings.”

A year later, around 40 per cent of the Muslim families saved by Mohinder haven’t returned to their homes. “Some of them have permanently shifted to other areas, while some haven’t been able to get their houses ­repaired yet,” he says.

Singh recalls a similar incident from 1984 when he was just a boy and violence against Sikhs broke out in Delhi. He used to live 1 km away from where he lives now, and at that time his neighbours had helped his family and ­relocated them to safer places. What hurts him the most today is that people from his own locality threaten him for his heroic act. “They say ‘yeh aapne theek nahi kiya aur aapko iske parinaam bhugatne pad sakte hain’ (You haven’t done the right thing and might have to face ­consequences),” says Mohinder.

Mohd Momin Saifi 38
Old Mustafabad

He sheltered a terrified Brahmin woman for two days

Mohd Momin Saifi runs a grocery shop in the Old Mustafabad area. His family has been living here since 30 years ago when his father shifted from Ghaziabad, UP, 30 years ago. When ­violence broke out last year, Saifi was home with his wife and kids. He felt safe in the area that has a substantial Muslim ­population. The violence was concentrated in certain pockets where Hindus and Muslims lived close to each other.

“I got a call from Nadeem Bhai, a popular social worker, after he read a Facebook post about a woman hiding in her house,” Saifi says. Manju Saraswat, 57, was alone at her home in Bhagirathi Vihar, 500 metres from Saifi’s house, when the violence started on February 24. Her husband was out of town with her son and her daughter lived in Gurgaon, where she had a job. Late in the evening, Manju panicked when she heard loud noises outside. She heard a mob shouting sectarian slogans, and loud noises of stones being pelted and people being thrashed. Switching off the lights, she sat in a corner of her living room, scared for her life. She called her daughter, but it was impossible for her to come to her rescue. She decided to somehow survive the night and move to some other place in the morning, hoping it would then be safer outside. The situation, however, went from bad to worse. In the morning, she saw flames leaping from the shops in front of her house and smoke all around. “The smoke entered my house and I felt I would suffocate,” Manju recalls.

She called her daughter and other relatives again. Her daughter spoke to a friend, who posted a message on Facebook asking if anyone lived near Manju’s house. That was the post Nadeem saw. He went through his list of friends and acquaintances, looking for somebody who lived there. That’s when he called Saifi and ­explained the situation. When Saifi reached Manju’s house, she thought he could be one of the rioters and refused to talk. “I got scared seeing his white skull cap,” recalls Manju. “I asked him to leave, or else I would call the cops. Then he told me my daughter had sent him and that she was on the call with him. I was relieved only when my daughter called me and asked me to let them enter the house. Saifi said his house would be a safe place for me because it was in a Muslim-dominated area, and so I went with him.”

Knowing that Manju was a Brahmin, Saifi offered her a separate room and utensils, but she refused. “I thought she might not be comfortable eating food from our ­utensils as we eat meat. But she told us that she wanted to live here like one family,” says Saifi, who has five daughters with whom Manju spent her time playing during the two days she stayed there until her ­relatives came to pick her up. Now the two families share a close bond and are frequently at each other’s house. It’s almost as if they are close relatives. 

Sanjeev Kumar 42
Mahalaxmi Vihar

A 14-member Muslim family found safety in his home for a night

Sanjeev Sanjeev Kumar runs an artificial jewellery shop in New Delhi’s Sadar Bazar area, which is about 15 km from his house in Mahalaxmi Vihar, Karawal Nagar. Out of 700 houses in Mahalaxmi Vihar, three belong to a joint family of Muslims where three brothers—Mujibur Rahman, Nawab Khan and Sajauddin Mansuri—live with their wives and children. There are no other Muslims in the neighbourhood.

Around four in the afternoon of February 24, 2020, Kumar was at his shop when he received a call from Rahman, who said riots had started in the area and that he should be back home as soon as he could. Meanwhile, a mob reached Rahman’s house and warned the family that if they didn’t ­vacate the area immediately, they would be killed. When Kumar reached home and Rahman told him about the threat, he asked all the three brothers and their families to stay with him. “The locals agreed that they should not be asked to leave as they have been living there for very long. Sadly, I ­eventually came to know that the same people later criticised me later for sheltering them,” says Kumar.

All looked fine when the 14-member family shifted to Kumar’s house. However, around midnight, Khan’s daughter-in-law felt labour pains as she was pregnant. A dispensary named after Hindutva ideologue V.D. Savarkar—the closest health centre—was just 600 metres from the house, but as it was a Hindu-dominated area, it was not safe for any of the three brothers to step out. So Kumar decided to take her there. “I thought, if anyone asked me, I would say she was my wife. At two in the morning, I took her to the dispensary on my bike, but there was no doctor or trained staff there,” Kumar recalls.

The next option was Al-Hind Hospital in New Mustafabad, about one-and-a-half kilometre away. “As Al-Hind is in a Muslim-dominated area, it was not safe for me to drive there,” says Kumar. “Nobody from Khan’s family could venture out because they had to first cross a Hindu-populated area to reach the Muslim-dominated area. I couldn’t see the woman in so much pain and there was no time to waste, so I just drove from Veer Savarkar dispensary to ­Al-Hind and admitted her there. Fortunately, nobody confronted us on the way. I ­returned home in the morning, leaving her to the care of the hospital staff.”

Meanwhile, the three brothers decided to go to their relatives’ place somewhere else in the city because they felt it was not safe to continue staying in the Hindu-dominated area. “We didn’t want to put Kumar’s life in danger as our long stay in his house could have provoked others in the neighbourhood against him. So we shifted to Loni,” says Khan. “We are ­indebted to Kumar for saving our lives that night and we will never forget it.”

Two days later, on February 26, he got a call from the hospital that his daughter-in-law had given birth to a boy. “The situation got better after some time, and we came back to our homes. Time will heal our wounds,” says Rahman. 

Dr Sunil Kumar 60
Director-General of Health Services, and ­­Ex-Medical Superintendent, GTB Hospital

He motivated young doctors traumatised by the sight of charred bodies and serious wounds

Doctors at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in Dilshad Garden treated over 300 people injured in the violence. Located 6-8 km from the affected areas, the 1,500-bed multi-speciality government facility—a ‘teaching hospital’ ­affiliated to the University College of Medical Sciences—had no dearth of doctors and ­resource for attending to the ­injured. Its then medical ­superintendent, Dr Sunil Kumar, who is now director-general of health services, Government of India, praises his team of ­doctors and healthcare workers who treated the injured ­regardless of their religious faith. The hospital has healthcare professionals from all faiths and they rose to the occasion, working in unison to the best of their capabilities.

Asked if the sectarian tension had any impact on healthcare workers as they come from different religious backgrounds, Dr Kumar says, “Doctors have only one religion and that is to treat patients. Their professional commitment was exemplary during that time. They did face psychological trauma as witnesses of human tragedy. Watching the endless stream of injured and dead bodies from both communities arriving at the hospital drained them emotionally.”

Dr Kumar recalls horrific moments when ambulances arrived with severed limbs or charred bodies—in some cases impossible to identify without DNA tests. Over three or four days starting from February 24, more than 300 people, both Hindus and Muslims, arr­ived with multiple stab wounds, acid burns or gunshot injuries. That’s besides bodies of 53 people killed in the violence. Although it is not unusual for doctors to see bodies of the dead or treat severe injuries, Dr Kumar says a barrage of dead or wounded bodies of those who faced violence perpetrated by other people takes the challenge to a different level. “It is bound to cause psychological pain to any doctor or nurse, especially the young ones. Many young doctors, especially women, felt nauseated and had sleeping disorders for a few days. Some were not able to eat properly for days,” adds Dr Kumar.

To meet the increased ­demand for healthcare ­professionals so that the ­injured could get immediate medical attention and care, Dr Kumar stopped nearly all routine operation theatre services and shifted all his resources to the hospital’s trauma centre. “Our doctors and nurses spent sleepless nights working tirelessly without any lunch or tea breaks. They didn’t know if they would receive a body or a severely injured person when the ­ambulances arrived at the hospital. At such times, we have to detach ourselves from the situation and carry out our work in a more professional manner. That’s what we are trained for,” he says. 

Jishan Ahmed 30
Babu Nagar

He risked his life delivering food at night to families of all communities

Jishan Ahmed is a young entrepreneur who is into the online garment business. He lives in Babu Nagar, Old Mustafabad, a Muslim-majority neighbourhood. Hundreds of Muslim families shifted here when their houses in Shiv Vihar—one of the places worst affected by violence in February 2020—were burned down by the mobs. Jishan says most residents of the area are daily-wage workers and the violence destroyed their sources of livelihood. In the backdrop of protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in the area, there was some tension within its mixed Hindu-Muslim population. Many residents sensed the impending danger, and stored food and other essential commodities. But the daily-wage workers couldn’t afford to do that. Five days of violence, from February 23 to 27, kept thousands of people indoors.

“People were hiding in their homes out of fear and faced many difficulties. Many didn’t have fuel to cook food. They couldn’t buy milk for kids and medicines for the elderly,” says Jishan, who motivated his friends to pool in money to help such people. “I asked about a dozen friends to contribute as per their financial capability, and collected about Rs 2.5 lakh in just two days.”

He spread the word around through WhatsApp, and through his friends and ­relatives, that families who needed food, medicine or some other kind of help could contact him.

“My phone started buzzing after February 27, and for months it never stopped, ­because the Covid lockdown was imposed soon after the violence,” says Jishan. Both Hindu and Muslims from the surrounding areas called him for all sorts of things. He rode his scooter during midnight to deliver flour, rice, milk powder, baby food etc. Those who ran out of cooking fuel req­uested him to bring them cooked food too.

“Coming home after delivering the stuff, I would checked my phone and find multiple missed calls,” says Jishan. “I couldn’t even call back as there were incessant calls to receive and respond to.” He gets goosebumps recollecting those scary moments of driving late in the night when an eerie ­silence immersed the streets. His parents tried to dissuade him from stepping out as they feared for his life, but he was relentless. “I know I risked my life, but the pain of watching people crying on the road and ­relatives mourning for their dear ones moved me. When I look back now, I feel I don’t know where I got so much courage, strength and energy from,” he says. 

Anuj Kumar 33
SP, Diu, and former ACP, Gokalpuri

He saved his senior officer from a mob, but lost a head costable

Delhi Police’s role during the violence came under intense criticism. It was alleged that the police didn’t respond to victims’ calls and left them to their own fate. They were even accused of complicity in the violence and widely lambasted for being insensitive towards the minority community. However, there are cases where families from both communities admit they might not have survived had the police not acted on time and evacuated them. There are also cases where, despite being outnumbered, senior police officers didn’t order their men to fire at the mobs as they knew it could have increased the number of dead and injured.

One such incident involved Shahadra DCP Amit Sharma and then Gokalpuri ACP Anuj Kumar, who is now Superintendent of Police, Diu. On February 24, when mob violence erupted near Maujpur Chowk, Kumar was asked to assist Sharma along with his team of constables at the anti-CAA protest site in Chand Bagh Mazar area. Two companies from the Police Training School, Wazirabad, and about 50 personnel from the Shahadra police station were deployed there. The crowd swelled to over 30,000, and the two officers continued to convince them to not resort to violence, says Kumar. “Other police staff informed me that rumours were spreading among the crowd that the police had removed protest sites in other areas and resorted to indiscriminate firing, killing children and women,” he adds.

Soon Sharma was attacked with knives and rods, and fell unconscious. A bullet hit head constable Ratan Lal and he fell on the ground. Kumar too got wounded, but when he saw his injured senior lying on the ground and surrounded, he pushed his way through the crowd with three constables, Mohit, Pradeep Sharma and Naveen. They lifted Sharma and carried him to the other side of the 2-metre-high road divider. Still being chased, they crossed two more fences carrying the unconscious DCP and got him admitted to a nursing home.

“When the mob started to surround the nursing home and reached the front gate, I decided to move DCP sir from the back exit of the nursing home,” says Kumar, who then arranged a private vehicle (as all government vehicles in the vicinity were stuck among the crowds) to shift Sharma and Ratan Lal, through a service lane from the backside (as the roads were occupied by the crowds), to GTB Hospital. “As soon as we left the nursing home, the mob ransacked and gutted it,” says Kumar. The DCP and the head constable were brought to the emergency ward at GTB Hospital in an unconscious state. Head constable Ratan Lal as declared ‘brought dead’. 

Sana Siddiqui 19
New Mustafabad

She helped at least six women give birth during the five days of violence

Aspiring to become a nurse, Sana Siddiqui, then 18, joined the Al-Hind Hospital in early February 2020. Al-Hind is a small two-storeyed private health centre in her neighbourhood.

Her sister Razia was also working there and she wanted to gain some first-hand experience before she could decide to join some formal course. Little did she know it would turn out to be the toughest test of her patience and mental strength. Just a fortnight after she joined, violence broke out and the hospital was overwhelmed with the injured. “It is in the middle of a Muslim-majority area. The mob couldn’t enter so deep inside, so the hospital was not on their radar,” says Sana.

Patients from all religious communities visit the hospital, which, with its very ­limited resources, can only provide first aid and small surgeries. “I got scared seeing the number of injured people and the degree of injuries,” she recalls. “If my elder sister were not there to give me mental support, I could not have continued. It was mentally disturbing. Victims from the minority community were more in number. Small kids with acid burns or stone injuries and women with stab wounds were also admitted along with male victims.”

She says some of them had suffered injuries only because they were ­panic-stricken. “I treated an elderly Hindu woman, who told me that she fell off the stairs out of fear and broke her limb,” says Sana. “The majority of the injured were first admitted here and later ­transferred to GTB Hospital depending on their condition. It ran out of beds and ­resources very soon.”

Sana says some of the hospital staff called their relatives to volunteer in ­whatever capacity they could. “My elder brother too joined us at the hospital. During the five days of violence, six pregnant women were admitted and we helped them deliver their babies.” 

Text by Jeevan Prakash Sharma Case study photographs by Suresh K. Pandey