‘Stopped going to cops’: Delhi riots victim struggles to keep up pursuit of justice

Photographed wearing a blood-spattered kurta, his face scalded by acid, Mohammed Vakil Mansoori’s was one of the pictures that captured the brutalities of the 2020 Delhi carnage.

A resident of Shiv Vihar in northeast Delhi, the 50-year-old had initially lost his vision for 13 months. After five operations, he is now able to see shapes, but only through his right eye – with a much smaller, static pupil. “I can see somebody is sitting in front of me. I can count currency notes. I can’t read yet,” he says, sitting in his newly built house. And while his injuries heal, the wheels of justice are yet to move for him.

In spite of two complaints, first by his daughter and later his wife, the Karawal Nagar police station has clubbed his case with another FIR related to a mob setting a car afire on February 25, 2020. Miffed with the merger of unrelated cases, Mansoori approached a local court at Karkardooma complex a month later, seeking directions to the police for a separate FIR under penal sections related to unlawful assembly, rioting, promoting religious enmity, defying government order, attempt to murder, causing injuries with acid, setting house afire, and robbery. The court is yet to decide the matter.

On the other hand, the FIR, with which Mansoori’s complaints were clubbed, was registered under IPC sections 147 (rioting), 148 (punishment for rioting), 149 (common object in rioting), 427 (damage) and 436 (mischief by fire). The FIR was lodged on a complaint by one Furkan, a resident of the same locality.

In his plea to the court, Mansoori has named seven accused, including his neighbours, from Shiv Vihar. He alleged that one of the accused threw acid on him and his daughter while they were trying to escape the violent crowd around 8 pm. “I saw the commotion outside. As I and my family were climbing the staircase to the rooftop, we were spotted by a crowd abusing Muslims. One of them threw an acid bottle at us. It broke on my face and my daughter also suffered burns. We somehow escaped to safety. But I remained blind for more than a year,” he tells Newslaundry. The plea also alleges that the mob set his house and shop on fire and plundered them before vandalising the adjacent mosque.

But now, Mansoori is having second thoughts about pursuing the case. “Ultimately, I have to live in the same locality with my family and raise my children. Since my shop and house are here, moving to a different place is out of the question. It’s not good to make enemies.”

Mansoori claims that his family initially visited the police station several times. “We have stopped now as we have to focus on our livelihood too.”

However, justifying the clubbing of “unrelated” complaints, a police officer from Karawal Nagar says that if a mob goes on committing different acts of crime, there can’t be separate FIRs. “The mob will burn vehicles and houses, damage properties and attack people. In this case, both acts (burning of car and attack on Mansoori) of crime took place in the same locality. We have received around 1,200-1,400 complaints related to riots at Karawal Nagar police station. It’s not feasible to register separate FIRs in each case.”

In the last hearing in the case on October 18, the court had asked the police for an action taken report on Mansoori’s plea for a separate FIR. While the police officer Newslaundry spoke to claims the report has been filed, Mansoori’s lawyer Salim Malik denies the same.

A call and message to Northeast Delhi DCP Sanjay Kumar Sain did not elicit a response. This report will be updated if we receive a response.

Life after riots

Days after the carnage, this correspondent had visited Mansoori’s house and shop that were torched. While he was recovering in the hospital, his family members sought refuge at a community relief camp in nearby Mustafabad. With a bag of family documents, his wife Mumtaz Begum had hesitantly returned to the house and shop, littered with glass shards and burnt tin canisters.

Over the next eight months, the family had to rent a nearby house before rebuilding their own by February 2021 with help from the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind – a plaque on the wall attests to the Islamic organisation’s contribution. The family has also received Rs 2 lakh in compensation from the Delhi government.

The new two-storey building has a room on each floor; the shop is on the upper ground floor. “Earlier, the shop used to be full of grocery items. Now, it’s just a shadow of its former self. You know how kids run the shop. I can’t help them due to my eye issue,” laments Mansoori, wearing a lungi and a vest. He had come to Delhi 30 years ago from Etawah to work at a bakery in old Delhi, before moving to Shiv Vihar. “First, it was a bakery shop but the business was lukewarm so I turned it into a grocery store.”

His elder son Shamim had to quit his contractual job with IRCTC to attend to his father’s medical needs. “I have been accompanying my father to Chennai every month since September last year,” says the 24-year-old, who accompanies his father to Chennai each month for medical treatment – the expenditure borne by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. His younger brother is in Class 8.

Mansoori now speaks little of the plea. “They (wife and sister) approached the police a few times. Of late, we have not visited the police. Ultimately, you have to focus on how to run the house,” he says, complimenting the police for letting the shop run beyond restricted hours during Covid period. “They understood our plight."

On his next visit to Chennai, Mansoori hopes to start wearing glasses, but his life, his neighbourhood will never look the same. “We used to celebrate all festivals together. I still have so many good Hindu friends. Lekin ab pehle wali baat nahi rahi.”