Zakia Jafri, who turned her private loss into an uphill marketing campaign for justice after her husband, Ehsan Jafri, was brutally murdered throughout sectarian riots within the state of Gujarat in 2002, died on Feb. 2 at her daughter’s dwelling in Ahmedabad, India. She was 86.
Her demise was confirmed by her son Tanveer Jafri.
Greater than 1,000 folks, a majority of them Muslim, died within the riots that gripped Gujarat, on the western coast of India, in 2002. They started on Feb. 27, when a hearth killed almost 60 folks on a prepare carrying Hindu pilgrims to Godhra, a city in Gujarat. The reason for the fireplace was disputed. Nonetheless, as rumors unfold that Muslims had been accountable, mobs erupted throughout giant components of Gujarat, attacking Muslim houses and companies, and killing folks by hacking and burning them to death. Amongst these killed was Ms. Jafri’s husband, who was a union chief, a lawyer and a former member of Parliament.
In a authorized battle that dragged on for almost 20 years, Ms. Jafri accused Narendra Modi, India’s present prime minister, who on the time was the chief of Gujarat, of “conspiracy and abetment” within the riots.
In all that point, “she remained stoic, despairing, but hopeful,” Teesta Setalvad, a human-rights activist, mentioned in an interview. “For me, for us, she was the mom of all of the survivors of 2002, carrying the burden of her ache and loss with dignity and fortitude and at all times giving us energy.”
Zakia Naseem Fidahusain Bandookwala was born on Jan. 15, 1939, in Rustampur, a village within the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. She was considered one of six youngsters of Fidahusain Fakhrali Bandukwala and Amtubai Fidahusain Bandukwala, rich farmers. She moved to Ahmedabad, within the western state of Gujarat, after marrying Mr. Jafri in 1962.
The couple’s dwelling in Ahmedabad was burned down throughout riots in 1969. However as an alternative of leaving the realm, Mr. Jafri grew to become concerned in politics to fight for India’s secular traditions, and helped established the Gulberg Society, a Muslim housing complicated within the majority Hindu space.
He was elected to Parliament as a member of the Indian Nationwide Congress Occasion in 1977 — one thing no different Muslim from Ahmedabad has ever achieved. Ms. Jafri was lively in her husband’s public life, her son mentioned, and sometimes appeared with him at occasions. One black-and-white {photograph} that he nonetheless has, taken at a Congress Occasion assembly within the Nineteen Seventies, reveals Mr. Jafri on the microphone addressing a room stuffed with males. Ms. Jafri is the one girl within the crowd.
She grew to become a extra distinguished public face after her husband was killed.
Through the riots, Gulberg grew to become the location of intense carnage, leaving almost 70 folks lifeless. Mr. Jafri was hacked to demise in his dwelling as the remainder of his household sought security upstairs.
“Armed with swords, pipes, acid bottles, kerosene, petrol, hockey sticks, stones and tridents, the mob was unrestrained for six hours,” Human Rights Watch mentioned in a report. In a single interview, Ms. Jafri mentioned that her husband had made more than 200 phone calls to authorities and police officers because the mob gathered, however had acquired no assist.
Within the years that adopted, she accused Mr. Modi and Gujarat’s senior officers of conspiracy and abetting the riots.
Ms. Setalvad mentioned she met Ms. Jafri in March 2002, simply weeks after the violence. She aided Ms. Jafri and different Gulberg survivors by pressuring the federal government to open investigations into inaction by a police pressure that they asserted was below Mr. Modi’s management, and by defending individuals who had been being threatened to not testify as witnesses.
“I don’t have that a lot energy now. I cant even stroll now,” Ms. Jafri, already in her 80s, mentioned in considered one of her final tv interviews. “However nonetheless I’m going to the court docket at any time when it’s required, at any time when they name me. Twenty years have handed and I didn’t get justice. The ability is of their palms; what justice will they offer?”
The case was finally dismissed by India’s Supreme Courtroom in 2022 after investigations didn’t uncover concrete proof incriminating Mr. Modi. The court docket had initially absolved him in 2019, and did so once more when it dismissed Ms. Jafri’s enchantment. It dominated that negligence, or breakdown of legislation and order, was not the identical as conspiracy.
Along with her son Tanveer, Ms. Jafri is survived by one other son, Zuber; a daughter, Nishrin Hussian; and 6 grandchildren.
After the case was dismissed, the federal government arrested Ms. Setalvad, with legal professionals telling the court docket that she had waged a “marketing campaign of vengeance” to defame Gujarat and had used Ms. Jafri as a “software” within the course of.
Tanveer Jafri mentioned his mom had been disenchanted, not solely by the shortage of accountability but additionally by the best way her combat for justice had been turned in opposition to folks like Ms. Setalvad, who had devoted herself to the trigger.
“She took solace,” he mentioned, “in the truth that future generations may have all these paperwork to unearth the info.”
