We Have No Orders to Save You - Human Rights Watch

properly register his complaint and that other witnesses in the case are being forced to back down, one by one. He
told Human Rights Watch:
The attackers wore underclothes that were white, with brown scarves tied around their necks.
They had swords, hockey sticks, pipes, arson, diesel, petrol, acid, and so many things to attack us
with…. We tried to save ourselves and battle it out from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eventually we
got tired, but people continued to throw pipes and swords and stones at us. And then at around
5:30 or 6:00 they surrounded all the people, including women and children from two to ten years
of age. They encircled them and burnt them alive. There were also many rapes. Many women
were defiled of their dignity.
I took [my daughter] Kauser to the hospital for delivery the day before the attack. She was ready
to deliver. But the doctor said there was time and to come back in the morning. But there was no
morning after. By then it was all over. And the tragedy is that the people who ripped my
daughter’s child out of her body and killed her are walking about freely. Why does it have to be
this way?… The government should forbid these people from going free because if they’ve
committed crimes today, tomorrow they could do even worse things. We voted for our
government, but in our time of need, there is no support for us. The government should realize
that on this earth, everyone is equal because we are all Indians. So why these kind of crimes
against us? We just want peace and quiet, that’s all. We don’t want anything else. We want to
live under the principles of love and compassion. This is my request and this is my testimony.
Please make every effort that the criminals get punished. Even if they don’t get punished a lot,
they should at least get punished a little. 50
Sheikh added that when he went to the police to register a complaint “they didn’t write the information down.
The police did not record any names in the FIR. We told them but they didn’t…. There’s also barely anything
about the destruction and damage to our house. They accounted for 1,500 rupees only.” 51 Sheikh claims that six
of the witnesses in the Naroda Patia case have been bribed into recanting their testimony, and that as a result, the
main accused have been set free:
Now those people are free and sitting at home. The government should punish them. Their
actions were criminal. If we do something small, they drag us to jail and that’s that. But in this
case things are so different… In our case, in Naroda Patia, of our eight witnesses, six have been
lost. So what are the remaining two to do? Now the statement of one or two people won’t carry
much weight in court. If I say that this happened, there are so many others who are going to say,
no it didn’t happen. When six people are going to contradict what I say, then my testimony won’t
have much weight. We are always there, within their view. They can do anything to us. They
can even make a so-called accident happen. 52
Clutching to the photos of his family members who were killed, Sheikh pointed to each one, reciting their names
and relationship. “There were two small children, whose names were Asif and Rafique, my son Sarmaddin, my
wife Jehnabi, my daughter-in-law Shah Jahan, my sister-in-law Noor Jahan Begum, my daughter Kauser, my
50 Human Rights Watch interview with Khalid Noor Mohammed Sheikh, Ahmedabad, January 5, 2003.
51 Ibid. At the time of the interview, Sheikh had only received Rs. 1,000 for damages to his home, though he estimates his
losses at Rs. 500,000: “The television, tape, fridge, radio, fans were all there and they were destroyed. At this point, there
isn’t even a spoon inside my house.” He had received Rs. 450,000 from the government as compensation for the deaths in his
family: “I still have checks to pick up for the deaths of my family. Every month checks come in different amounts. I’ve only
received one check in my son Sarmaddin’s name. I have four more people to collect checks for. The check that came for my
daughter, I have given that money to her husband. I didn’t take the money for my daughter.” Ibid.
52 Ibid
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 19 JULY 2003, Vol. 15, No. 3 (C)