Following interview of Khozaimabhai Khambati, Ahmedabad, by Mudar Patherya

Nineeten bungalows formed Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad; nine belonged to mumineen.

My story goes back to an afternoon in late February 2002 when riots commenced in Ahmedabad at around one in the afternoon. Most people exposed to the violence – from within the complex and outside - sought refuge in the house of corporator Ehsan Jafri, the most influential man in the vicinity. Some mumineen ran into our bungalow - facing Jafri’s – and especially my residence on the second floor.

We sneaked a quick look out of the window; the heart sank. A river of people. Our lives were over. We did everything possible to merely delay the inevitable. We locked the ground floor gate. We ran into the flat. We shifted all the heavy furniture against the door. When you have 15 versus 5000, even these are as effective as fighting a tidal wave with an oar.

My wife began reciting dua-e-nasre-wal-mahaaba. Some of the ladies (nine) who had sought refuge in our flat sat in front of a picture of Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin Saheb and implored, ‘Havey humney aap aj bachaavjo!’ Other ladies kept reciting Ya Saiyyedas Shohadaai over and over again accompanied by khaamosh maatam.

One didn’t need to see to figure what was happening outside; one only needed to hear. There was an incessant roar, sharp cries of ‘Maaro saalaao ne’ and ‘Kya chhupse?’ and ‘Nahi chhodiye aaj!’, glass shattering (as distinct from breaking!), several anguished cries of help, the thud of metal on wood and the impact of assorted brick on wall, door, window, roof and people. The crowd used bhaalas, spears, acid bottles, sticks, hockey sticks and swords. You could be clubbed, pasted, pierced or carved; death was inevitable.

Dear reader, your mind is probably ‘reading’ this sequentially; when they played out in front of us, they happened combined. When you heard that ‘mixed’ sound – even for just 10 seconds – you remembered your Maker. If you think you have heard this kind of sound in a film then you simply haven’t. It is the kind of sound mix that still makes one wake up in cold sweat even if one is in the security of a foreign country years after having first heard it.

That fateful afternoon, every instant was like an hour. Would the door break the next minute? Would I still be alive an hour later? Would my clothes be the clothes I would die in? Was there any sense in guarding our valuables any more? Was there anything left to be said to the wife before someone ran a sword through me? Was there any message of aqeeda to be conveyed mentally to the Dai of the day? Was there any call left to make?

I did what was natural; I simply hugged my son and said ‘Beta, havey qayamat na din milsoo!’

Meanwhile, we established contact with Huzurala in Khandala; the Shehzada saheb there asked us to immediately recite the azaan in four directions out of the window. That would have been a giveaway; so we sneaked to the window, crouched and whispered the azaan outside. And then we continued to tune in to the sounds coming out of the other bungalows of Gulbarg Society and interpret what it meant for us. And then we waited. And waited. And waited.

When we heard the siren of the police jeep at around 5 in the afternoon – exactly the moment that my wife finished the dua-e-nasre wal mahaaba, probably the longest time she has taken in her life to finish it – we felt there was some hope. When the police came to liberate us out of our hiding place, our first question was: “Humney kem khabar padey ke tameyj police chho?” We quietly crept out, threw out unexploded gas bottles, hugged others who had survived (“arre, shukr ke tu bhi bachi gayo!”) and were then escorted out of our complex to the roza of Syedna Qutbuddin Shaheed. What was a distance of five minutes took us three and a half hours that evening.

Ninety nine out of 130 died in Gulbarg Society; almost every single person in Ehsan Jafri’s bungalow was either torched, speared or dismembered; each limb of Ehsanhai himself was methodically chopped before he was killed …limbless. When the mob came to torch our bungalow, they searched out the ground floor and found no one, they went to the first floor and found no one and whereas they should have gone to the second floor where they would have discovered their big catch, they turned away in the mistaken assumption that it was a one-storey structure (like others in the colony).

When 10,000 eyes cannot distinguish between a one storey and two-storey structure, you have the evidence of the most visible mojezaa of Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin Saheb.

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