Hindus welcoming the Milaad-un-Nabi procession may seem like a picture postcard of communal harmony in the city but that’s just the surface. It is here that Ishrat Jehan lived. Young Ishrat was shot dead in a police encounter in 2003, accused of plotting to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The Lashkar-e-Toiba website claimed she was a martyr. While the police are non-committal when you ask if Mumbra is “sensitive” and a place for potential trouble-makers, people here don’t want to discuss Ishrat Jehan.

The only thing they say is that she is buried in the Kausa qabrastan in Mumbra. Her family has moved out since, to escape the scrutiny, and word has it that they may be in Parbani. In the neighbourhood where Ishrat lived, people are angry when you bring her name up.

Says Shaukat Ansari, living in the Simla Hills building nearby: “She is buried, it is over, so go back and look up your press clippings.”

The owners of the ration shop her family used to frequent are edgy when you even mention her name. In Mumbra, Ishrat Jehan has become a symbol of the sense of unease they experience about living here. In Kausa, where Ishrat lies buried, nearly all the shops are run by people who have come in after the 1993 riots. Al Noor Stationery and Store is run by 25-year-old Wasim who came here in 1993 from Santa Cruz. His effortless English betrays his education at St Anthony’s in Mumbai. So why this low skill job? Why not one of the newer options in a rapidly growing Mumbai?

... contd.