A year on, festivals mean sorrow to Ikhlaq’s family
BISADA: Mohammad Danish can’t sleep. It has been a year since a mob lynched his father, Mohammad Ikhlaq, on suspicions of cow slaughter but the young man is struggling to find a normal life in Delhi’s leafy Subroto Park.
The 22-year-old survived the attack with a fractured skull and underwent three surgeries soon after but says he is more scared of the nightmares.
“Sometimes the nightmares wake me up. The angry faces, the distress calls of my father often come in my dreams and tear into my heart,” says Danish, Ikhlaq’s younger son. “I was helpless, I was not able to protect him.”
Ikhlaq’s family fled their village — Bisada in Uttar Pradesh — soon after the incident and took shelter with his elder son, Sartaj, who works in the air force and lives in a cantonment in Subroto Park.
Ikhlaq’s mob lynching triggered a nationwide movement on intolerance and inspired hundreds of writers, academics and filmmakers to return their government awards in protest.
But for the family, little has changed. The incident seems to have hit Ikhlaq’s wife Ikraman the hardest. She rarely meets anyone now and doesn’t want to talk about the lynching. She says she has no friends in Subroto Park.
“I fear everyone’s questioning eyes. I am tired of telling people what happened and why and that we are innocent,” she says.
Ikhlaq’s killers have not been convicted and earlier this year, police complaints were lodged against members of the family for alleged cow slaughter after the flesh reportedly recovered from his fridge was found to be beef.
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