PHOTOS

Gujarat Riots, Feb 28, 2002—Never Forget

Faces and memories of survivors who bore the brunt of the Gujarat communal carnage in 2002, which broke out on this day 16 years ago, under the watch of then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi

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NH Political Bureau

Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
File photo of Afsana Bano Pathan, a resident of Pirwali Bagol in Ode off the Ahmedabad-Vadodara expressway. Pathan is among those who survived the post-Godhra riots in Ode village. Twenty-seven people died in two separate incidents in Ode, a village of tobacco and banana farmers and farm labourers. Over 260 houses in the village belonged to Muslims and they were all gutted down, residents say. Many of the survivors continue to live here amidst people, who they allege, perpetrated the crime
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society was once a lively locality of 19 bungalows and ten flats housing upper middle class business families. It is located in a predominantly Hindu area in Ahmedabad. This is where 38 people, including former Congress Member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri, were killed in the post-Godhra riots. Many others went missing. Those who survived the massacre moved out to other parts of the state. Their homes here stand abandoned. Except for a small mosque on the premises, there is hardly any sign of life. Just an eerie silence that screams murder

Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Yusuf Khan Murad Khan lost 11 members of his family in the Deepda Darwaja massacre in Visnagar, Mehsana district
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
This is all that remains of a settlement of this Muslim mohalla in Deepda Darwaja, a locality in Visnagar, Mehsana district. Extended Eid celebrations were on in two dozen homes here on February 28, 2002, when a mob surrounded the settlement and torched the houses and killed people. Fourteen people died here that evening. The mohalla stands in ruins, neglected while in houses located around it, life goes on. Survivor Yusuf Khan Murad Khan Pathan lost 11 members of his family. He hid behind an iron gate and watched his wife and kids being hacked to death. Those who lived to tell the tale have now relocated to a housing colony a few kilometres away

Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Even soot that has covered the walls of this house in Sardarpuras Sheikh Mohalla, which was torched by a mob in February 2002, fails to mask the words ‘Ya Allah’ painted on the wall. A couple of prayer beads hold on to a rusty nail like the victims of this massacre hold on to the hope that justice will come to them some day. Thirty-three people died in post-Godhra riots here. Today, the mohalla lies abandoned.  Inside, the walls are crumbling but in some places, faith remains unshaken. Tiles with pictures and inscriptions of what Muslims consider holy have withstood the massacre and the monsoons that followed
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
File photo of Naroda Gam. These children were either not born or too young to remember what happened on February 28, 2002. The houses surrounding this courtyard, homes to people who have lived in this area for generations, were torched and eleven people killed. Most survivors have moved out of Naroda Gam but there are some who have returned because their lives and their livelihood revolved around this place. Today, the people living in the brick and cement houses go about their lives with normalcy but the sense of being stabbed in the back by some of their own lingers

Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Manoj Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Rashid Khan Pathan (left) and Anwar Miya Malik survived the riots in Ode near Anand on March 1, 2002. Twenty-three members of their immediate and extended family were killed
Photo by Vijayanand Gupta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo by Vijayanand Gupta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
In Ahmedabad, Rahim Khan lost his vision and fingers in the Godhra riots

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