Ramaswami: Tarique Anwar, Amit Singh, Mukund Jha 05 Mar 2020 Delhi Violence: Shattered Hopes Relief camp set up by Delhi Waqf Board at Mustafabad Eidgah New Delhi: Garhi Mendu village in North-East Delhi’s Ghonda Assembly constituency wears a deserted look. Burnt, ransacked and looted houses and shops testify the large-scale sectarian violence that ravaged the area from February 23 to 26. The small village now has no Muslim family as all of them have fled after the rioters went on rampage on February 24-25. A%20mother%20garhmadhru%2005032020.jpg A mother is always the best friend. A riot victim of Garhi Mandu along with her children at Shriram Colony's relief camp. An uneasy calm still prevails there, with any stranger walking in the streets being looked upon with suspicion. A visible discomfort is palpable among the local population who don’t want the burnt debris to be photographed and reported. Aquil Ahmad (65) and his wife, however, managed to gather some courage and did not flee until they were attacked and forced to leave. When the only mosque in the village close to Ahmed’s house was ransacked, it sent panic among all Muslim families, who started fleeing in the dead of February 24 night . But he mustered courage and decided to stay there, assuming that the elderly and responsible people of the society would intervene and pacify the rioters. But he was wrong, as nothing of that sort happened. “Soon after maghrib azaan (call for the prayer offered after sunset), our mosque, which is close to my house, was vandalised on February 24 evening. Everything was destroyed. It created panic among Muslims in the village, and they began fleeing for safety. They should not have done so. I did not leave. But, it was a longest night for us. Aggressive chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and abusive anti-Muslim slogans were echoing in the air. We spent the entire night in extreme fear, hoping that the next morning will bring peace,” Ahmad told NewsClick at a relief camp set up by the Delhi government in a community marriage hall in Muslim-concentrated Shriram Colony in Khajuri. aquil%20ahmed_0.jpg Aquil Ahmad along with his wife at a relief camp at Shriram Colony in Khajuri He went on to narrate his ordeal. “The next morning at around 7:45-8 a.m (February 25), they — the rioters in the age group of 18-25 years — began looting, vandalising and finally torching houses belonging to Muslims. The first target was my house. I was dragged out and brutally thrashed with sticks and iron rods. After I was hit on head, I fell on the ground and lost consciousness. I don’t know what followed after that. When I regained consciousness, I found myself in blood-soaked clothes. We were rescued by a few policemen, who brought us here,” he said. “I saw my house, which had no valuable item except few clothes, a bed, utensils and few other things to fulfil our basic needs, ransacked and partially burnt,” he added. What happened after he fainted was described by his wife. “We were having food in the evening when a mob comprising local boys broke the entrance gate, which I had bolted from inside and put piles of wooden blocks to support it so that no one could easily break the gate. The boys broke the gate with the help of a heavy iron rod. They barged into our house and dragged my husband out, hurling abuses on us and mercilessly beating him. Some of them then sprayed some inflammable substance — perhaps petrol or thinner — on our bed. They tried to light it up but the match box they were carrying did not work. They used our matchbox, which was lying on a table close to our bed. Once the flame began rising, they ransacked the place.” She said the men seemed to be in a hurry. As the bed started burning, she said, the rioters left her house. “I immediately poured water and doused the fire. One of them saw me doing this and shouted while leaving: ‘Isne to aag bujha diya (she has doused the fire)’. But the mob didn’t return. After they moved out, the police reached and rescued us,” she said. The couple said the mob burnt all the vehicles parked in their way. It was clear that they knew who the vehicles belonged to. There is a visible pattern in the violence that took place in the village. Those Muslims who live in houses belonging to the dominant Gujjar landlords as tenants were not harmed. A few of them are still living there. The entire village has come up on agricultural land close to the Yamuna riverbed that was sold to migrant Muslims by local Gujjar landlords. The community now wants to forcefully regain the sold land from the Muslim population, taking advantage of the opposition by the minority community to the amended citizenship legislation. The violence in the national capital was triggered after Hindu nationalists attacked protest sit-ins against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the National Population Register (NPR) and the proposed National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC).