On Monday night, after an announcement at a local temple in Dadri village of UP, alleging that the family had killed a cow and consuming beef, 18-year-old Sajida had no hunch about how the next few hours would ruin their life.
Minutes later after the announcement, a mob from the natives of Bisara village surrounded and then ransacked her house before allegedly beating her 50-year-old father Mohammad Akhlaq to death.
“Before the announcement was finished, they reached our house and broke down the doors. They shouted abuses at us and alleged that we had beef in the house,” Sajida says.
Her brother Danish, 22, who got injured severely, is battling for life at a government hospital in Noida.
Wearing clothes stained with blood, Sajida pleads with a relative over the phone to save her brother “I have lost my father. I cannot lose my brother. Please do everything possible to keep him alive”.
The family, which has been living in Bisara for generations, never felt any communal tension in the past.
“For every function, we have feast in our house, Hindu residents of the village have attended such functions.
“Even on Bakri-EId, we had guests. But suddenly they started doubting us. There was some mutton in the fridge which was taken away yesterday. They thought it was beef. The police have taken it for examination. If the results prove that it was not beef, will they bring back my dead father?” Sajda asks.
Standing in her father’s room, pointing to the pieces of bricks near a broken bed, blood stains on the floor, Sajida said, “They dragged my brother and father outside the room and used bricks which they found under his bed and beaten him to death”.
“My brother was dragged to the courtyard downstairs and they used bricks to hit him on the head and chest, leaving him unconscious. They also tried to molest me and hit my grandmother on her face. They threatened to kill me if I said a word to the police,” Sajida added.
It was only when the police reached the village around 10.30 pm that the attackers ran away.