Thirty-five-year-old Seema Dagar of Kailash Nagar on the outskirts of Haryana’s Palwal district was ready with her story of how her “innocent” husband Ramesh, 38, has been framed by the police.
Ramesh is one of five arrested for mob violence that caused the gory death of 16-year-old ‘Hafiz’ Mohammad Junaid on a running train between Faridabad and Asauti on 22 June.
About 32 kms south of Palwal town, in Khambi village (aka Khami) under Hasanpur tehsil, the Pandit and Kshatriya residents defended Chandraprakash, 25, another suspect nabbed by the police for alleged involvement in the lynching.
The overwhelmingly Hindu residents of Khambi, in Haryana’s backwaters, have a hateful narrative about the Muslim “woh” (Other) who “are getting all the attention now”.
After a long-winded account of an alibi – Ramesh was on “night shift” at the Faridabad factory where worked as a casual hand, he was to take the 7:20 pm train to Faridabad the evening (22 June) Junaid was killed, he purchased two samosas from a vendor at Palwal station – Seema slipped on a crucial piece of evidence that the police have against her husband: the recovery of a blood soaked shirt from their Kailash Nagar residence.
“Will the police examine his blood-smeared shirt and the blood samples of the dead boy?” an anxious Seema asked as we were about to leave the brick-built house.
Inside the single-storey house, Seema, her mother, another female relative and one of her three daughters, lounged on a bed. The Dagars moved to this house after selling off their property in a Jodhpur village south of Palwal town some seven years ago.
Kailash Nagar is a relatively new colony populated mostly by Jats such as the Dagars. Two Muslim families live on the periphery of this part of the thickly populated town, but not many people care what they do and how they live. The haphazardly laid-out tenements are connected by webs of narrow, buffalo dung-splattered lanes. The Dagars’ four children attend the Apollo School.
Seema, who dropped out of Class VI before she got married, said that Ramesh, who is “illiterate”, did odd jobs – drove tractors or worked as farm labour – before he got the job of a casual worker in an adhesive tape-manufacturing factory “between Faridabad and Ballabhgarh” barely three weeks ago.
“His cumulative salary, including overtime, is Rs 9,000 per month,” Seema, her elaborate kanauti (ear tops) dangling at the lobes barely concealed by her dupatta covering her head, said.
“He left for the station that evening to take the 7:20 pm train. He purchased two samosas from a vendor.
But next morning when he hadn’t reached home by 11 am, I told my eldest daughter to go and check on him at the station where someone told her that Ramesh had been taken away by the police,” Seema said, denying that he ever drank, and asking quizzically, “How could someone who was to take the 7:20 pm train be part of the mob when the (Muslim) boy is said to have been thrown out of the incoming train at 6 pm?”
Next to Palwal station’s main platform – where most local trains between Delhi and Mathura halt – is a walled, vacant plot of land which locals use to either play cards or imbibe alcohol.
None of the three samosa vendors near the station recalled Ramesh buying the snack from them. Nobody could confirm whether Ramesh had consumed alcohol that evening, although he is said to have told the police that he was drunk the day the lynching took place.
“Woh bahut seedha ladka hai,” (He is innocent.) Memwati said of her son-in-law who is lodged in Neemki jail after his arrest on 23 June.
The Pandits of Khambi, however, were less than straight in their account of the involvement of four of their fellow villagers – Chandraprakash who is an accountant in a Faridabad firm, Rameshwar Dayal, a Delhi government employee, Gaurav and Pradeep who worked in Ballabhgarh.
The four know each other well and are daily train passengers. They usually take the train from Solaka station, 7 kms from Khambi.
The caste bond between the Khambi residents was visibly strong. “None of Chandraprakash’s relatives are at home. They have all gone for the lagan and sagayi of his younger brother Shivkumar in Adampur in Uttar Pradesh,” Gurudutt Bharadwaj, a former panchayat member and Chandraprakash’s neighbour said, dissuading us from visiting the accountant’s house.
Soon enough, Gurudutt’s spartan living room filled up as several village men and womenfolk filed in. Some women from Chandraprakash’s house followed suit. A pair of croaking frogs leapt in too.
“When Hindus are killed no minister pays any visit to their homes. Par unka (Muslims) kutta bhi mar jaaye to bheed ho jaati hai (People gather around even if a (Muslim) dog is killed),” Gurudutt said, spewing venom.
Sitting on charpoys and other assorted rudimentary furniture, the men sought to give a religio-casteist twist to the events after Junaid’s lynching. “Uss samudaye ko kyun itni pakad di ja rahi hai,” Rajesh Kumar, who owns 15 acres of land, said, as Gurudutt, sitting on a charpoy in a singlet and trunks, hissed a series of unprintable invectives.
“When the police reached Khambi a couple of days ago, we readily gave up Rameshwar and his brother Yudhishthir, who was subsequently released. The next day (28 June) they swooped down and picked up Chandraprakash, Gaurav and Pradeep in the wee hours. This is a village inhabited by Pandits and Kshatriyas and local Congress leaders have politicised the issue,” Narayan Hari, a farmer with 7 acres of land, said.
As the cacophony of voices in the room rose, Rameshwar’s brother Subhash Chandra, a panchayat member and a man of few words, asked: “Jiska beta ya bhai arrest ho, uske dil pe kya beete?” But Rajesh Kumar had little time for sobering words. He redirected the assembled gathering’s ire against the Muslims of Khandawli, asking: “Were there only a few individuals in the train coach? Why is so much importance being given to them (the Muslims)?”
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