As family mourns Umar’s death, his 9th child is born
BHARATPUR: As Umar Mohammed’s body was wheeled in for autopsy, his distraught wife walked into the labour room for their ninth child. The dead father and the newborn reached home the same day — Wednesday.
The 38-year-old Khursheeda gave birth to a boy in the afternoon at a community health centre (CHC) in Pahadi, about 10 km from their village—Ghatmikain Rajasthan’s Bharatpur.
A thatched room without doors and a plot of open space, where the family keeps its buffalo and three goats, constitutes their home.Khu rs heed a lies in a straw shack covered with a tarpaulin. The newborn lies beside her.
The child wails for comfort, but his voice fails to pierce the gloom surrounding the village. His 42-year-old father was shot dead and be headed by assailants in Alwar on November 10 when he was transporting cows to his village. Umar’s body was found on railway tracks in Alwar’s Ram gar hon Friday evening and sent to Jaipur by police ahead of the chief minister’s visit to the area. The autopsy was delayed till Wednesday because of objections from the family.
Hundreds of people gathered in Ghatmika, mostly from villages in the Muslim-dominated Mewat region, on Thursday. As the baby slept, the imam began his sermon at Umar’s funeral.
“U maris going from this world with empty hands. This is how all of us will go,” he said. The imam named the newborn I br an Khan. He’s the first to be named by somebody other than his father in this village. Before the burial, a public meeting was also held to decide whether to bury the body or stage an indefinite protest.
Zareena, Umar’s elder sister who took Khurs heed a to hospital, said the delivery was difficult. “Somebody forces some water or tea down her throat once in a while and that’s all she’s taken in the past six days,” she said.
Sitting on his haunches near Za reena is Maqsood, Um ar’ s el dest son. The 18- year-old betrays ignorance about the craft of making a living .“He was killed in a way that even the cruel would pity,” said Fazluddin, a relative from N uh. U mar had gone to buy cows so that he could have milk for the newborn, he added.
But police suspect Umar and his friends were cow smugglers and what happened on November 10 was a clash between two criminal groups. There is a case of cattle smuggling against Umar and three against Tahir Khan, his friend, Alwar police said.
“The police are lying. The supposed case is actually against another guy, Umaruddin. The name of the suspect’s father is also different,” says Shifat Ahmed, are tired bank manager, at the funeral meeting. Umar’s relatives accuse cow protection vigilantes of murder and alleged that police were hand in glove with them.