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Ex-MP Jaffrey's widow relives a day of terror

Sheela Bhatt in Ahmedabad

How many people have died in Ahmedabad? How many in other parts of Gujarat? Where are the bodies? Who is leading the mobs that are setting entire families on fire? How many of the dead have been cremated/buried with respect? Has any action been initiated against the rioters?

As of now, there is no system in place in Gujarat, India's second most industrialised state, to know what exactly is happening. Even senior leaders like Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani are hard-pressed to know the situation.

On Friday, Advani condemned the previous day's attack on Gulmarg Colony in the Chamanpura locality of Ahmedabad and said, "The killing of [former Congress member of Parliament Ehsan] Jaffrey and his family members has shaken me."

Advani was only partially right. Jaffrey is dead, but his wife Razia survived.

Recalling the horrors of February 28, Razia Jafri said they had been warned that morning of the possibility of disturbances in their locality. "Our colony had 19 houses," she said. "Only one belonged to a Hindu; the rest belonged to Muslims. Hindu families surrounded us, but we never had any tensions."

The Jaffreys had been living in Chamanpura since 1969 and the septuagenarian did not expect any trouble. "But by 8.30am we could sense the tension mounting," Razia Jaffrey said. "My husband started calling people for help while other residents of the colony gathered in our house, which was quite big."

Outside the main gate, a mob had started collecting. "Jaffreysaab got worried. He called the police commissioner, his party president Amarsinh Chaudhary and scores of leaders." For almost three hours he continued to make frantic phone calls, pleading for help. "At one point he even cried on the phone to save so many lives. But no one, not a single leader, not one policeman, came to our rescue."

"Ehsanbhai called me more than four times," admitted former chief minister Chaudhary, "but I was helpless. I could not get Police Commissioner [P C] Pande on the line. I could not save them. I got more than 200 calls from Muslims on the first day on three phone lines. People from all over Gujarat were calling and asking for police help, asking for protection, asking for a rescue team."

Chaudhary said many Hindu Congressmen were also calling him because they had sheltered panic-stricken Muslims in their houses and, as a result, had started feeling unsafe themselves. "Mad crowds were abusing them," Chaudhary said.

At 10.30am Jaffrey told his wife to go to upper floor of the house. "That was the last time I saw him," she said. "By 11am stone-pelting began. Our boys tried to resist initially, but the crowd multiplied in no time."

The people hiding inside Jaffrey's house were terrified. "By then we had realised that all of us were going to die," said Jaffrey. Her husband continued to think the police would come and disperse the attackers, "but it never happened".

Jaffrey had a licensed pistol, "but he knew that one pistol can't save you from 8,000 people. He fired in the air to disperse the crowd, but it proved ineffective."

By now the mob was throwing Molotov cocktails and burning tyres at the house. "The womenfolk doused those tyres with blankets. The women and children did everything they could.

"But at 1.30pm the crowd entered from the back. We had locked our home from inside and the crowd was waiting outside to kill us."

The mob was brandishing tridents, staves and swords and shouting filthy abuse. "I can't even describe what they were saying about the women," she said. "It is the most filthy language I have ever heard."

Two youths who went to lock the main gate were caught and killed with swords, then set afire. "We had no idea what to do! Whom to turn to?"

Razia Jaffrey still believes that if the police had appeared on the scene on time, they would have all been saved. "By 3pm the ground floor was on fire, engulfed in smoke," she continued. "Imagine burning 18 bungalows full of wood furniture. But we could not run out for fear of being lynched."

More horrors were in store. The mob brought out gas cylinders from the other houses, piled them up outside the Jaffreys' and set them alight. "They burst the cylinders in front of our home where more than 150 people were crying for life," she said. "We were scared and praying to Allah!"

Those hiding on the upper floor were saved, but those on the ground floor were engulfed in the fire. At 3.30pm the police finally arrived on the scene and opened fire to disperse the mob. "When I came down," Jaffrey said, "it was all over. I could not believe my eyes. I could not find my husband's body. My neighbours were unrecognisable too."

She had been waiting 24 hours to get custody of her husband's body when rediff.com contacted her. "The police are not helping us, nor am I allowed to go home to look for his body. I think I'll go mad," she cried.

She is now living with a relative. The hurt and anger are evident in their eyes, though they are careful not to reveal any of it in words.

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