[Reader-list] Remembering Gujrat - II

[ravikant]

JUSTICE FOR ALL- SAFIYA'S POST MORTEM 

by Navaz Kotwal - navaz at humanrightsinitiative.org


I met Safiya in a hospital. She lay in a corner, adjacent to the toilet. The 
stench was unbearable. She was in no condition to talk. She tried but her 
mouth wide open, was filled with blisters. She was on I.V drips unable to eat 
or drink anything because her intestines had been ruptured. Suddenly somebody 
removed the sheet covering her body. Her intestines were exposed, raw and 
infected. I felt faint. It took an effort to draw closer. As I stroked her 
head I saw the pus oozing from the wounds. There was no skin. I felt 
helpless--frozen. Her daughters and family were all beside her. They told her 
story. I had no words then but I write for Safiya now.  
Safiya lived in Jhalod, a town in Dahod district of Gujarat, seven hours drive 
from Ahmedabad. Hindus and Muslims - the majority of them landless 
agricultural labourers - had been living together for years sharing their 
poverty and small joys. Living under the same yoke of want had blurred any 
differences of religion. Occasionally there had been minor clashes between 
the two communities but none too serious. They went to the fields together, 
celebrated each others' festivals respectfully and pulled along as best they 
could. March 1st, the day after the Godhra carnage changed all this forever. 
 Safiya's brother Mohammadbhai tells the story. Returning home from his daily 
namaaz in the afternoon he saw a well armed mob of about 500 people, in khaki 
shorts with saffron headbands attacking his modest home. On second thoughts, 
it was not a mob. Their faces were familiar. They all had names. Most of them 
were his neighbours. The door was being broken in. They entered his house – 
his sole possession after a long and struggling life. As most of the mob left 
after looting and burning, a few remained behind to perform more devious 
crimes. His mother, Bibiben, 80 years and too old to move, was beaten on the 
chest, kicked in the abdomen and then hacked to death. His wife Khairoon was 
also stabbed in the abdomen. She collapsed. They left her for dead. His 
eleven-year-old niece was also stabbed in the abdomen and upper arm. By some 
luck she was spared from further injury. A few men grabbed his widowed sister 
Safiya who had come home for Eid and beat her till she could no longer stand. 
Then raped  her, stabbed her repeatedly in the abdomen and pelvis, and for 
good measure beat her with metal pipes till her abdomen tore open and her 
intestines spilled out. They left her for dead and moved on for more. Three 
long hours passed. Mohammadbhai hid near the masjid, frozen, his senses not 
responding to anything that he saw. He watched it all. Even today he asks 
himself why he did nothing as a son of 45, a husband, a brother and an uncle 
to protect his family?  
The police arrived. By then every one had left save Mohammadbhai, and a 
disturbing calm had settled down on his mohalla. He was taken away to another 
locality where he would be safe.  But by some twisted official logic, or 
should we say divine irony, the injured women were left behind. Hours later 
some villagers gathered courage to take Safiya and her mother to hospital. 
Her mother was declared dead on arrival but Safiya was operated upon. Later 
the police came to record her statement. She could barely speak but she told 
her story. The FIR records “minor injuries“.  
Complications developed from Safiya's first operation and she was shifted to 
Baroda Civil Hospital and operated upon for a second time. Still there was no 
improvement. After a month Safiya was shifted to Dahod Anjuman Hospital, 
where I met her at the end of April 2002. How she had survived for 2 months 
amazed me. I knew that if she lay in that hospital she would never make it. I 
had to shift her to Ahmedabad. But it was not an easy task. We were up 
against a system, which was proud of its deliberate and prolonged 
incompetence. Hindu owned private hospitals refused to accept her. Others 
demanded impossible sums of money. A Muslim owned private hospital was the 
last resort. The seven-hour journey from Dahod to Ahmedabad was a gamble. 
There were chances of complications arising on the way. The ride was a 
nightmare. The two doctors, her daughters and I sat in silence as we all 
prayed that nothing would go wrong.  
Safiya was operated on for a third time the same day. For the first time in 
two months she thought she was going to live. When I was leaving she joined 
her hands. I thought she said ‘thank you' and ‘come again.' I promised I 
would.  She died a week later on the 1st of May. 
But Safiya's story does not end with her life.  The private hospital could not 
do a post mortem, so Safiya had to return to Dahod. That meant another 
seven-hour journey, this time with a rotting dead body. At Dahod District 
hospital the authorities refused to do the post mortem.   The body had come 
from a private hospital in Ahmedabad; the history of the case was not clear; 
and there were no supporting papers – some reasons for refusing to do a 
post-mortem. No amount of pleading could change their minds. All the 
questions of the hapless family members drew no other answer. The public 
Servants are not answerable to the poor. So poor dead Safiya was taken to 
Jhalod hospital another hour’s journey away and finally after six more hours 
of haggling the doctors agreed to do the post mortem. The final report, which 
came two weeks later, said it all.  Death was due to ‘Renal Failure and 
Septicemia'.  
The FIR with its record of ‘minor injuries' and the finishing touch of ‘death 
due to renal failure and septicemia' in the post-mortem made certain that 
there will be no official memory of the savagery that Safiya suffered; no 
recognition of the pain of those first hours; no punishment for her rapists 
and tormentors; no compensation for her family for all the neglect and agony 
of her months in hospitals and of course no investigation into the cause of 
death. 
Safiya was an Indian woman. She was raped, stabbed and beaten until she died 
of it. It took a long time to accomplish all this. In life the State could 
not protect her. But did it have to cheat her with so much deliberate and 
premeditated care in death?  
 
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