Author: Vikram Rautela
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 26, 2008
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/man-tells-sit-sister-died-of-tb-not-in-the-02-riots/402995/0
Yunus said Zarina's daughter, Anisha, who
was then 12 year old, had told the police that her mother was murdered and
her body was burnt by the mob
Zarina Mansuri, a 30-year-old Muslim woman
who was believed to have been brutally hacked to death and later burnt by
the mob in the Naroda Patiya massacre of February 28, 2002, was not even alive
at that time. She had died of tuberculosis about four months earlier.
Zarina's brother-in-law, Yunus Mansuri, made
this startling revelation before the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation
Team (SIT) probing cases of the 2002 post-Godhra communal riots, during his
recent deposition.
Deposing before the SIT on June 24 this year,
Yunus had disclosed that Zarina was suffering from chronic tuberculosis (TB)
and that she had succumbed to the ailment, while under treatment at civil
hospital here. In her statement, Yunus had further stated that Zarina died
in the month of Ramzan in 2001, which was roughly four months before the post-Godhra
communal riots broke out in Gujarat.
The SIT has appended Yunus' statement in the
case chargesheet it had filed before a city court here about a fortnight ago,
a copy of which is available with this paper. The 44-year-old Yunus works
as an autorickshaw driver and lives with his wife and three kids in their
ancestral house at Pandit Ni Chali area in Naroda Patiya.
Yunus told Newsline that Zarina's daughter,
Anisha, who was then 12-year-old, had told the police that her mother was
murdered and her body was burnt by the rioting mob that day. Anisha is now
18 and stays with her in-laws in Kumbharvas area in Gomtipur here.
Yunus added that he came to know about his
niece's 'incorrect' statement only this year, when the SIT summoned him for
further investigation in the case. "I was shocked to know that she (Anisha)
had said all that about her mother. I told SIT that someone in the relief
camp might have tutored her to say all this. It is strange that the police
relied upon the 12-year-old's statement and never even cross checked it with
us," he said.
About the rape of one of her friends, Shabana
(15), which Anisha is said to have witnessed (according to her statement recorded
by the police on May 15, 2002), Yunus' deposition said: "This, again,
is wrong. Anisha had witnessed nothing like that that day. We, along with
several others, were hiding on the same terrace of a house in Gangotarinagar
at that time and none of us had seen anything like that."
However, he said, "After the riots, while
my family stayed in the Shah-e-Alam relief camp, Anisha, along with her father
and others, was in the relief camp near Sonal Cinema. Her statement was recorded
that time and it seems to have been fabricated," he told this paper on
Thursday.
"I even scolded Anisha for having said
all this. But then, it also struck me that she was only 12 then and might
not have even known all that was written in her name," Yunus' deposition
said. When asked if Anisha could be contacted, Yunus said, "She is crying
and should not be disturbed at this stage."
Yunus, who owned a kerosene business in Naroda
Patiya area in 2002, recalled: "I remember distinctly that she (Zarina)
died on the 9th day of Ramzan in 2001. She was buried in the kabaristan (Muslim
cemetery) near Naroda Gam bus stand. I was present when her last rites were
performed and also have the cemetery's receipt."
"Some people even suggested that I should
keep mum and seek compensation for Zarina's death. But I am a God-fearing
man and cannot do what Islam does not allow. I therefore told SIT the truth,"
Yunus added.
Over 90 people were killed in Naroda Patia
in the post-Godhra riots. While Zarina had died of TB four months earlier,
her husband, Yunus' elder brother and Anisha's father, Kasam Mansuri, had
succumbed to the same disease in 2003.