KESHARI PRASAD, 55
It was a chance visit to the Faizabad court that cost Keshari Prasad his life. A labourer who worked at construction sites, Prasad had little to do with courts. But the 55-year-old accompanied his friend to visit a lawyer the day the bomb went off in the court. His wife Pyara Devi struggles to come to terms with loss. “Why did he go to the court?” she asks listlessly.
With her husband gone, she’s wondering how to take care of her three daughters, one of whom is married and lives with them.
Prasad used to earn about Rs 1,500 a month and the family would somehow stretch that over the month. But now even that has gone. When she is not worrying over the future, Pyara Devi is agonising over the past. “Why was my husband killed? Can the police trace his killers?” she asks.
She has no idea what terrorism is all about and is perplexed over why her husband was killed. “ Koi kisi ko kyon mar dega (why would anyone kill others)?” she mumbles.

MANOJ, 12
He was the youngest among the nine killed in the twin blasts at Varanasi. The eldest of seven children, Manoj belonged to a Dalit family that had migrated to Varanasi from Uttar Pradesh’s Akbarpur district a few years ago.
He was just 12 but it was his earnings that his family depended on. He polished shoes at the Varanasi court, earning about Rs 50 a day. On November 23, Manoj left home in the morning. The money he would have earned that day would have bought the family their dinner. The evening, instead, brought them the news of his death.
Now his parents—father Jilayeet who works as an ear cleaner—and mother Savitra mourn with their family.
“Nothing can compensate for the loss of my son. Not even the Rs 5 lakh that Behenji (Mayawati) has given us as compensation. Ask her to bring my son back,” says Savitra.

... contd.