(Subhashini Ali is former MP, former Member of the National Commission for Women and Vice President of the All India Democratic Women's Association.)
Two very frightened women living with their terrified children in Mumbra. Both widows. Both the victims of powerful men and their associates who use religious frenzy to promote their own agendas, who are not ashamed to lie as they pretend to espouse large causes to ruin the small homes of powerless people. Both these women live in Mumbra in the Thane district, actually a suburb of Mumbai. Mumbra is the ghetto that shelters thousands who sought refuge and security here after the terrible riots of 1992 and 1993 which vivisected Mumbai and tore apart its veneer of cosmopolitanism.
Shamim did not believe in her daughter's guilt for an instant. Her intense sorrow and rage gave her unbelievable courage and she travelled to Ahmedabad and Delhi, not once but several times, braving terrible threats to her life, undeterred in her pursuit for justice. Lawyers and activists came to her help and in 2009, the district court in Ahmedabad gave a judgment that placed Ishrat's killers in the dock. The magistrate's verdict was that Ishrat's death was not an encounter, but a cold-blooded killing. Shamim did not stop here. She approached the CBI and the Supreme Court and, as 2013 turned the corner into 2014, it seemed as if her efforts would bear fruit. Most of the police officers accused of involvement in Ishrat's death were in jail. They were accused not only in this case but in others of extra-judicial killings, all involving Muslims. They were denied bail and the CBI was pushing for their early conviction.
Shamim can do nothing but draw her children close to her and hope for a ray of light to emerge from the darkness that has engulfed her small home. All her nightmares have returned to haunt her. One by one, her daughter's killers have returned to fill her days and nights with terror.
It is incredible that the Government of Maharashtra, a BJP-Shiv Sena joint venture, is hounding Shireen Dalvi instead of giving her protection against people who are hell-bent on creating an atmosphere of religious frenzy against her. The Government has not even intervened on behalf of the employees of the paper she edited, which has been closed down by its owners. It has even gone to the extent of arresting two hawkers who sold the 'offensive' copy of the paper. A paper that they could not even read.
These two frightened women of Mumbra, fighting a lonely battle for justice, dealing with their terrified children, are confronted not only by the power of the State that can destroy their little worlds but also by the mad, unthinking violence that the unprincipled and political use of religious frenzy can conjure forth, anywhere, anytime.
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