Sole bread earner and lone son loses his life in Pusesavali riot in Satara District

Noorulhasan Liaquat Shikalgar (30) , a resident of Pusesawali who died during the attack of a rioting mob on Sunday, 10 September was the lone son of his parents and had a diploma in civil engineering. His maternal grandfather and uncles are all retired armed forces personnel. The family is in a state of shock as the lone breadwinner for them was no more in the world to support them claim family members. 

Shikalgar’s mother retired from the local Public Health Centre years ago while his father currently teaches Arabic to children at a local madrasa. He got married some six months ago and wife is seven months pregnant.

His maternal uncle Siraj Shikalgar is a retired army personnel  who worked with the Corp of Signals. Noorulhasan's death has been shocking for the entire family. He was the only son of my sister Zainab and used to do menial jobs, take small time contracts and look after the field. His parents have been left alone due to his untimely murder and he was the only earning person of their family ,” he said.

His mother Zainab said “ Ours is a simple family and we have nothing to do with what happened to us. We are completely dependent on our milch animals and our son used to do menial jobs and get money to run the family. We have lost our only son who took care of us and prayed five times a day. Today our life is shattered as he had to lose life for no fault of his ,” he added.

Siraj Shikalgar further said “ At that time  of the incident I was in another village.  It was Isha ( night ) prayer on Sunday, 10 September and there were fifteen to sixteen persons  inside the makeshift mosque which was surrounded by a motivated  crowd  which was aroused allegedly by  the hate speech  delivered by a local right wing leader . They pelted stones at the mosque shed and it was bolted from inside as the inmates were afraid. The mob broke the lock and got inside. They switched off lights and attacked the inmates with  slabs and rods. They beat everybody and all of them were injured. Noorulhasan sustained head injuries  on his head, neck and chest. His hand was also fractured and he  had sustained serious injuries. He died on the spot and  the autopsy report is awaited. The police initially  took him to Aundh PHC and other injured  were taken to a Karad hospital. Noorulhasan was declared dead at the hospital and brought to Satara Hospital ,” he said.

Sadik Shaikh said that Satara district was being targeted by the right wing ecosystem from outside the state “  There is a trend of hacking whatsapp , Facebook and Instagram of muslim community  youths and posting offensive and derogatory messages related to the other community from their personal accounts  to achieve  sinister political goals. The derogatory language is not from Maharashtra and Satara and hence we demand a forensic probe behind this organised criminal conspiracy against the community ,” he added.

Satara SP Sameer Shaikh when contacted told National Herald,  “ We  have arrested twenty persons in connection with the case and IPC 302 ( murder ) has been invoked against the accused ,” he added. According to the police, as many as 27 persons have been booked in the case  which includes four minors while four are absconding. The accused have been remanded to four days police custody by the local court. The mob came from nine villages which include names like Karawadi, Karad, Pargaon and Karambi.

The local Muslim community had staged a six hour standoff with the police demanding the arrest of a local right wing leader but relented only after the local elders and community members met with the police and demanded strong action against the leader