HASHIMPURA: After 28 years, Hashimpura massacre survivors vividly recall the horrors of the mass murder that shamed humanity.

Hashimpura is just another locality on the outskirts of Meerut with busy roads in the daylight and buzzing commercial spaces by the evening. Nothing of any criminal nature ever seemed to have happened here. Not unless you walk into one of its bylanes where almost every family lives with the photographs of its male members killed twenty eight years ago.

May 22, 1987. The Citizen spoke to three of the survivors who dared to bring out the truth.

Naeem, now 44, sits with his co-survivor Zulfiqar, who is about the same age, at his house and vividly recalls the events of that fateful day. “I was a student in Ninth standard. It was the day of Alvida (as the last Friday of the month of Ramazan is known) and due to the curfew we had not stepped out of our homes. They (Police Armed Constabulary) came knocking at our doors and ordered the men to gather on the main road. There they separated small children and the old from the young. After separating them from the youth, we were stuffed in at least 5-6 trucks and sent to jail. There, they again divided us into two groups- one which stayed back in the civil lines station, and other, comprising us, who were again told to board the truck which was taken to the Gang Nahar (canal) by the Meerut road in Muradnagar locality,” he told The Citizen.

“The truck was then stopped by the canal at around 8 p.m. and we heard a voice shouting ‘get down from the truck’. That was the only thing they said and then started firing at us,” remembers Zulfiqar as his voice low with grief.

Zulfiqar still remembers every minute detail. “First fell Yasin, then Mohammad Ashraf and third was supposed to be mine. I was thrown out of the truck and shot at here (he shows his arm) but the bullet had left the body and since none of my vital organs were hit, I survived by faking my death. It was so dark that their firing lacked precision and they could not decide if one was completely dead. We all were being thrown into the canal and when my turn came I hung on to the bushes after being thrown, and then they were gone. Hours later, when I climbed over the embankment I found Qamaruddin, a neighbour of mine, lying near by. I somehow dragged him to the main road in search of help but he told me that he would not survive and that I should run away to save my own life. I was left with no choice but to run. I sought help from a person in Muradnagar, he helped me to get admitted in a hospital. I later went to my maternal uncle’s home in Ghaziabad. From there I went to another relative in Nainital, staying for another six months, who helped organized a press conference with Chandra Shekhar (the then national opposition leader who went on to become ninth Prime Minister of India in 1990) and that helped us tell the world what happened to us.” Zulfiqar receives a phone call and leaves for his daily business. All the while, Naeem verifies Zulfiqar’s testimony with his nods.

“That was the time we attempted to confront them with our bare hands but in vain as they were about 20 men and all had guns," Naeem takes over with the story.

"By the time they got finished firing at us inside the truck, I found Qamaruddin intestines on me, I was covered with blood and they thought I was dead. Then they started pulling out bodies out of the truck. I was the first one they drew out. They kicked me in the head to see if I reacted. I didn’t. But just before throwing me in the canal they fired a precautionary shot that grazed my skin. I did my best not to tremble. It was only after I found myself in the canal that I breathed properly for the first time and quickly came to the side, and waited for my opportunity to escape. I witnessed them killing and throwing everybody one by one. Just then, a dairy vehicle approached near the PAC truck with its headlights on. They immediately ordered its driver to shut the headlights and stop at a distance. But this intervention alarmed them and the PAC truck immediately left Gang Nahar with the rest of the men still inside.

I came out of the canal and heard a cry for help. It was Yasin’s voice. But as I tried to drag him out of the canal my hands dug into the insides of his body that was ridden with bullets. He died just then.I pulled out two more men who also died soon. Then I left the spot and headed towards farms which opened into a ‘dhaba’. There a Hindu man was having his meal and rushed to help me immediately after seeing me. He offered me tea and asked one his colleagues to let me stay in a room in the nearby farmhouse where the latter worked as a security guard. I received Rs. 50 from him to travel to Ghaziabad. I went to live with my uncle near Ghaziabad. I was too scared to return home. But I did after a couple of months.”

Naeem clearly remembers that , except for his father and mother , most others in Hashimpura had been jailed. Due to the curfew, his parents came to know about his ordeal only after fifteen days. “It was Zulfiqar's statement in the Urdu daily ‘Chauthi Duniya’ (Fourth World) as a survivor of the pogrom. The first statement of its kind which led the outside world knew that something of this scale actually happened.”

…

Babuddin Ansari is another survivor of the massacre. He is a native of Bihar but fate had trapped him in Hashimpura in May 1987 as he was visiting with his father.

“I took a bullet on my shoulders when PAC men had first opened fire on us in the truck near the Gang canal in Muradnagar. By the time they moved the truck away from the Gang canal, twenty five of us had been killed. The truck drove a little further and soon stopped by the Hindon river bridge. You see, the truck was the same but the men were killed at two separate places. The second being the one near the Hindon river where the rest of almost sixteen people were killed in which group I was the only one to have survived. I was the sixth person to be thrown into the river. Before throwing me they fired another shot which hit my leg. Luckily I fell near the embankment and held onto a rock. ”

Babuddin pauses in between his sentences and needs to be reminded of the conversation.

“In a full moon lit night, I could see bodies being thrown from the Hindon bridge one by one. Time could be around 11 p.m. Despite bleeding I retained my senses as I had to save my life. Meanwhile some policemen came flashing their torches into the river. I thought they were sent by the PAC men so everytime they threw the light upon the river I’d duck into the water. But the wound forced me to come out finally. A policeman stuck his rifle to my head and asked my name. When I told him my name and how I ended up here. I also came to know that he represented the Ghaziabad police. I also saw Qamaruddin's body being kept in the police jeep. From there I was taken to the police superintendent who assured me of help. The Ghaziabad police then picked up my belongings from Hashimpura. By the morning 5.30 a.m. I was admitted in a hospital where I stayed till the evening. Next day I was safely escorted to Bihar.”

The survivors are still very hopeful about justice. Naeem believes that the struggle for justice will go on even though a Delhi court acquitted the accused PAC jawans in a verdict passed on 24 March citing the prosecution’s inability to establish they were the same jawans who had fired those fatal shots. He works as a labourer in Zulfiqar’s workshop which makes spare parts for the Jal Nigam Board. Babuddin works in a loom and praises the effort made by civil society so far.

It is evening. The muezzin calls to prayer and Naeem receives a phone call. He decides to meet the people for whom he will have to relive the horrid experience once more. “Chaliye, ek qurbaani aur,” he says with a smile. His first smile since afternoon. “We need the world to know what happened to us. No matter how many times we need to tell our story, it is necessary,” says Naeem.

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