Kavita Shrivastava, People’s Union of Civil Liberties(PUCL)
The PUCL team along with others has been examining the Rajsamand horror incident. Where Afrazul a migrant worker from Udaipur was killed on the 6th if Dec, the 25th anniversary of the demolition of Babri Masjid, in a ghastly way by One Shambhu Lal Raigar. The latter was a clone of the RSS hate factory and indulged in the gruesome hate crime.
Team of the PUCL, Udaipur, Bhilwara and Jaipur district, the MKSS and members of the Rajsamand Mahila Manch went on the 7th Dec and on 10th and 11th. WE were also joined by Harsh Mander and John Dayal on the 10th and 11th.
We met the family members of Afrazul, who told us that all the Bengali migrant workers have left Rajsamand out of fear, they lived in a hinduS house, who rejected this idea of society dividing the people in terms of Hindu Muslim. The Bengali migrant workers are all skilled in RCC work. About 400 or 500 work in 100 km radius. Afrazul was a labour thekedar.
Afrazul didnot know Shambhu, according to the police and his relatives. He was perhaps called under the pretext of construction work at his plot. On that last day Afrazul, went at 8 am to Jal Chakki, where labour ftom west bengal had their labour mandi, chowkti in Rajasthan, they all mey at 8am and had their morning tea. His last. His last conversation was at 11.30 am with his son in law that some money had to be paid to the labour, it was the last time he rode his motorbike and reached the spot. It seems when Afrazul had reached the plot of land on Dev Heritage wedding lawn, Shambhu had gone and so he left the place, but in ten minutes he got a call from Shambhu that he had returned so Afrazul who reached near 100 foot byepass, also comeback, and then we know what happened.
The police who was informed of fumes reached the place. The diary, the mobile phone, the aadhar card, were all partially or completely burnt down, 786 ending number of the motorbike got the police to call Rafique the Muslim community leader in Rajnagar, when he got there they all couldnot bear to see the horrible condition of the body, they realised from one of half of the name that was readable ..zul, that the person maybe a Bengali, so started calling all the numbers of the Bengali labour in his phone book and through this the labour arrived and identified it as that of Afrazul, his sister’s son Inamul sheikh and his son in law mossharraf all reached. The video of the murder was put on the watts group {name still not known} that day itself and that is how the police tracked him, next morning in Kelwa, where he went to spend the night and took his daughter and along. The police got him from Kelwa itself on the 7th when he stepped out of his relative’s house to buy chips for his daughter. He was shown arrested by evening.
We met his two brothers Nirmal a lab technician and his younger brother Lokesh who is in furniture business, his sister Sonia (who used to be a care giver in the social welfare department run home from special children} her )and her husband. The mother had come from Anand, Gujarat. The sisters 14 year old son, who had dreams of joining the army, had been made to film the entire gory incident of murder and setting the body on fire. He too was picked up by the police and sent to the observation home in Udaipur.
Lokesh, said it was difficult to speak aBout what happened, they were not connected to any sangh, vhp, but his brother after he lost out in business, got involved in watching videos. Was very active on social media. When we asked why he did it. They said that he could not bear to see muslim men trap Hindu women through love affairs. We then decided to look into these so call live affairs. He gave us three names of the families in their bastis whose girls had been caught by Muslim men. We went to all three addresses. They were 11 years, 9 years and 7 year old cases. They couldnot have precipitated this incident.
Sonia the sister said that she didnot go to meet her son as a murder is murder. And she was angry that he had succumbed to her brother’s wishes. She however added that her brother’s anger was related to the incidents of hindu girls being involved in love with Muslim men. Although she said that her brother lost out because of note bandi, and so did her father, shambhu had to close his new office in Udaipur, his business could not take off and went into indebtedness, yet since note bandi was done with the holy intention to bring back black money so she was not against it.
She spoke of her own 2nd son who was a spastic who came and greeted us, the cheerful daughter of shambhu who was a mentally retarded child, came and touched our feet. Although the girl was 12yesrs she looked 7 years old.
When we met the 2nd brother Nirmal the lab technician, he said he was so shaken by what had happened that he has not gone for work since that day. Now the task of looking after shambhu’s children had become his.
The family of the accused, had not yet hired a lawyer they said. But today morning we did see a lawyer from Jaipur Sameer Vyas, who had come to file a bail application for the juvenile. He said that the bail of shambhu would be filed soon after charge sheet would be filed and that would be filed soon as the evidence gathering stage was almost over. He also handed over a cheque of rs 50,000 to the family.
December 14, 2017 at 4:31 pm
The gory incident of murder should be condemned by all. This is yet another instance of hindu fanaticism