A 42-year-old man has been doing the rounds of city hospitals hoping against hope. Mohammad Haroon has visited mortuaries of three hospitals and seen bodies of more than 25 victims, but there’s no news on his 18-year-old son, Hujefa, missing since February 22. The death toll from the communal violence in north-east Delhi continued its upward march, touching 53 on Thursday.
‘Police not helping’
Fishing out a brown envelope from his pocket in which he has kept a photo of his son, Mr. Haroon, an Urdu teacher, said, “There is a high chance that he might have got caught in the riots. Police are not doing anything. Now everything is in god’s hands.”
The father of four children said his wife has been distraught since the day Hujefa went missing. “Police are not even tracing his cell phone number and are not giving us any details. Please help us,” he said, showing the photo.
Around 10 a.m. on Saturday, February 22, Hujefa, sporting a brown salwar kameez, left for a tuition class about 500 metres from their Mustafabad home. The family has not heard from him since and his cell phone is switched off.
“He said he would attend a religious event in Old Delhi after tuition, but we do not know what happened,” Mr. Haroon said. Before they realised that Hujefa was missing, Mr. Haroon had left for a madrasa in Narela 35 km away where he teaches Urdu.
Hospital-hopping
“From Sunday, violence started in the area and I couldn’t come back as the situation was really bad and the police were not answering our calls inquiring about Hujefa,” he said.
As the situation calmed down a little, on February 29, Mr. Haroon went from Narela to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in north-east Delhi. “They had said that there was a body that could be my son’s. I went inside the mortuary to check, but it was not him. Then I checked about 20 bodies there. I went around looking at the people admitted as well,” he said.
On March 1, he went to the police station and to RML Hospital and LNJP Hospital the next day. “At RML, I checked around five bodies... at LNJP they had already identified the bodies.”
Growing more desperate, Mr. Haroon went to GTB Hospital again with his wife. “My wife also saw the body that I had seen on my previous visit and confirmed it was not his.”
While the Delhi High Court on Thursday directed the police to publish on its website details and photographs of all unidentified victims brought to government hospital mortuaries, Mr. Haroon is still clutching at straws, leaving for Uttar Pradesh to meet a tantric. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.
