The barbaric killing of 47-year-old Mohammad Afrazul on Wednesday in Rajasthan’s Rajasamand has left his family in veritable trauma.
Afrazul, a migrant labourer from West Bengal, was burnt alive allegedly in the name of ‘love-jihad’. The accused, Shambhulal Regar, not only did kill him but also circulated the incident in videos.
Gulbahar Bibi, Afrazul’s wife, and her three daughters; Joshnara, 25, Rejina, 21, and Habiba, 17 are going through sleepless nightmares.
“Whenever I close my eyes, I see him being killed… I hear his cries. My youngest daughter tries to sleep, but she wakes up screaming. Nobody kills even an animal in that manner,” says Gulbahar, The Indian Express reports.
“I brought back the body of my brother… We were working as labourers in Rajasthan for so many years. We never thought we would encounter such brutality. We don’t understand what is ‘love jihad’. My brother was a married man with daughters and grandchildren,” says Afrazul’s brother, Mohammed Room Khan, 46.
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Another labourer, Rafiul Sheikh says, “The murder has come as a shock. Nobody thought that Afrazul’s life would end like this. We have to work here, but what if we are killed too.”
On the other hand, Hindu outfits distanced themselves from Regar. Hemendra Khatri, Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s official in Rajsamand, says “a probe has to be conducted by higher officials to ensure that the (Bengali-speaking) labourers are not illegal Bangladeshi migrants.”
“My father was the sole bread earning member. Our family is finished. We want the man who killed him to meet the same fate. I want to see him hanged. My father had been working there for the last 12 years… We want justice,” says Rejina, Afrazul’s daughter.
“What wrong did he (Afrazul) do? He went there to work so that he could feed us. Why was he killed like that? Is it because he was a Muslim,” she adds.