8 years after Muzaffarnagar riots, victims' kin await justice

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

Shamli/Muzaffarnagar, December 20

Spread across the resettlement areas in Shamli’s Kandhala town, hundreds of families hit by 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots still await justice.

“My husband’s body was never found. He was among the 11 people who went missing. They are still missing,” says 70-year-old Kausar Bi whose husband Naseeruddin never returned home once he left one morning in September of 2013.

Her son Aas Mohammad points to the dilapidated brick house the family built a year ago with Rs 15 lakh compensation received from the state government.

The house is yet to be plastered and has no toilets. Family members — Kausar’s five sons, two daughters and grandchildren — defecate in the open. Sources of potable water are far and few in these settlements which, according to estimates, house around 2,000 Muslim families of Shamli who migrated here after the riots.

Kausar for her part does not mind a subsistence living. What hurts her more is lack of justice. “It is hard to find a riot-hit family that found closure of case. The Right to Information queries we filed revealed that 510 FIRs were registered in the 2013 riots. Out of these, final reports — where cases are closed for want of evidence — were filed in 165 cases. Chargesheets were filed in 175 cases, but 19 murder cases were closed. Out of 47 cases of attempt to murder, 14 were dismissed and 15 accused let off due to lack of evidence. Nearly 31 accused were acquitted,” says Shamli lawyer Akram Akhtar Choudhary who is helping riot victims secure justice.

Akram described lack of reconciliation as a huge and continuing challenge but noted that the assertive Jats, who were on the other side during the riots, have “become much more sensible now and communal conflicts are rare”.

Enquiries in the field corroborate RTI revelations of few convictions in Muzaffarnagar riot cases. Umri (65), who lost her husband to the violence, said arrests were made but the accused were eventually let off.

At her ramshackle house in Kandhala, where she stays with five sons, Umri recounts the constant struggle to piece together a shattered life. In her vicinity are four other families that relocated here after the violence. They all share one hand pump.

“Look at the colour of the water we drink,” Umri says, pointing to a bucket full of yellow water, as health, hygiene, education and the future of riot-hit families remains a casualty.

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