Hazarabi Qureishi
then about 41, lost her husband and eldest son
Sitting in her one room tenement in a crowded, sprawling settlement near Kurla station, Hazarabi, 55, shivers at the mention of the 1993 riots.
On January 10, 1993, the Qureishis woke up to a mob attacking their Samman Nagar home adjoining the Hari Masjid in Wadala. Several men, whom they had not seen before, entered their house and beat Hazarabi’s husband Farooque to death and brutally cut off her eldest son Salim’s hands before her eyes. As she tried to intervene, she was thrown off the balcony. She hit a bar and lost consciousness. When she woke up, there was no trace of her husband or son, just walls splattered with blood.
“Sab taraf khoon hi khoon tha. Ab bhi jab sochte hain, to pura manzar aankhon ke samne aa jata hai (There was blood everywhere. I can see it even now),” says Hazarabi. “Till then, all Hindus and Muslims used to live together. Suddenly that morning, when we had not even woken up fully, they attacked,” she says.
Hazarabi’s two younger children Shabana and Rizwan were staying with a relative that day. Later, she was taken to Mahim where the children joined her. Shocked at what she had seen, Hazarabi continues to suffer from high blood pressure and a heart ailment.For days afterwards, the family and friends tried to trace the father and son. The police maintained a “missing” record despite the statements of the witnesses that they had seen the two being brutally killed. “They kept saying they must have gone to our native place, that they would return. Apne bacchon ko chodkar koi jata hai kya (Would anyone disappear leaving his children behind)? And we had seen everything, but for seven years they wouldn’t listen to us,” says Hazarabi.
The officials followed the rulebook, declaring a person dead after remaining missing for seven years. After losing the two earning members of her family—Farooque was a fruitseller in Byculla and Salim a tailor—Harazabi continued teaching the Holy Quran to support the family, ensured that her children got education and could support themselves. They also sold the property in Wadala. “Only we know how we survived. We try to forget what happened, we never went back there. What is the use? What was the use of the commissions and everything? Nothing came out of them,” says Shabana.
“For everything you need a father’s name, and my children never had it,” says Hazarabi.
— Swatee Kher

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