BADAUN, Oct. 1 — Lalli Hasina is unlikely to ever forget a train journey she undertook last Friday.
On that day she was travelling from Bareilly to her home in Navni Ti kanna near Dataganj with her granddaughter, Bari sha. All went well till the train approached Badaun station.
“I did not know why in fact, no one in the train knew. But the whole city seemed to be on fire. We could not see the flames, put we saw the smoke,” she said from her bed in the Badaun district hospital.
At Badaun, the puzzled passengers waited for the train to proceed. But suddenly there was an announcement that all the passengers should get off and assemble in the waiting room.
“The police locked us inside the room. When we asked why, they said the city was on fire and no one was safe. No one could step out,” Lalli recalled.
After some time, the passengers were told that they should get into a waiting train and return to Bareilly. Lalli and Bashira did as they were told and got into the 103 Up.
“Just before Pankha, the train stopped. A mob of people entered our bogey and started shouting, “Where are the Musalmaans, maro unko (beat them),” she said. Lalli cried out aloud and asserted that she was Hindu. As she was wearing a sari in the traditional UP style, the mob let her go and instead, directed their wrath at young Bashira.
“She is obviously a Musalmaan, they screamed and began hitting her with their lathis,” said Lalli. Bashira herself, was too shocked to say anything.
Acting instinctively to save her granddaughter, Lalli rushed forward, grabbed Bashira and bent over her so that the blows fell on her instead. She was severely injured on the forehead and arm. Bashira got a stunning blow on the back of her head.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 20, 1989
