Cow vigilantes have gained unchecked power and impunity in India.
For a toddler, a photo is a reminder of missing ‘papa.’ In another home, children write their father’s name on the walls. For one wife, prayer is refuge.
In Ghatmeeka village on the Rajasthan-Haryana border, Sajida’s toddler Shefa calls out for her father every time she hears his name – Junaid.
Weary of explaining her husband’s absence to her children, Sajida seeks comfort at her mother’s home nearby.
“It is very painful to see my daughter suffering like this,” said Mubeena Akhtar. “We married her off because we are getting old and wanted to see her happy. But her life is devastated now.”
As a nonprofit journalism organization, we depend on your support to fund more than 170 reporting projects every year on critical global and local issues. Donate any amount today to become a Pulitzer Center Champion and receive exclusive benefits!
On February 15, 2023, the families of Junaid and his neighbour Nasir made a police complaint stating that the men were missing. The families feared that the two had been abducted by the Hindutva outfit Bajrang Dal.
The next day, the police discovered the charred remains of the two men in an SUV in Haryana’s Bhiwani district. Months later, in May, “Monu Manesar”, or Mohit Yadav, the head of the so-called cow vigilante wing of the Bajrang Dal, was named in the chargesheet.
Three others were accused of murder, abduction and other criminal charges. Yadav was arrested in September after communal violence broke out in Haryana’s Nuh region.
“What was her crime?” asked Akhtar, referring to her daughter. “Had they not killed my son-in-law my daughter and her family would have been happy.”
Sajida recalled the last time she had seen Junaid. It was on February 14. Junaid told her that Nasir and he were going to another village to meet a suitor for his niece.
As Junaid was leaving, his two-year-old daughter ran towards the gate and asked him to take her with him. “‘Take her inside and take care of her till I return,’” Junaid told his wife.
Junaid’s last words haunt Sajida. “I miss him every second of the day,” said Sajida. “Our life can never go back to being what it was with him.”
Her six children, the youngest of whom was seven months old when Junaid was killed, keep Sajida going. “If I give up on myself, who will look after them?” she asked.
For Sajida’s mother Mubeena Akhtar, Junaid’s death has meant an additional responsibility as she grows older and for a family living in poverty, with little government help.
“They provided very little,” said Akhtar. “I don’t think it will be enough to feed six children until they grow up.”
At the same time, she has to comfort her daughter. “I cannot see my daughter in this state. No mother can,” said Akhtar. “It has traumatised not only her but us – her parents – as well.”
Sajida has sent three of her sons to a madrasa, where they get free education, since she cannot afford to pay for their school fees.
She now lives with two daughters and one son.
When Sajida shows one of the last photographs of Junaid to her daughter Shefa, now nearly three years old, the toddler’s face lights up.
“There is always a smile on her face and she calls him ‘papa’ while looking at the photo,” said Sajida. “I want her to know who her father was. I hope she remembers him when she grows up.”
At Nasir’s home near by, there is silence. “Not even children laugh here,” said Farmeena, 26, Nasir’s widow.
Since Nasir was murdered, Farmeena has struggled with nightmares, severe panic attacks and constant anxiety. Every night, she jolts awake, terrified, she said.
“When I wake up, I am drenched in sweat, my upper body shudders and I am inconsolable,” she said.
Nasir, 25, was the lone breadwinner of the family. After being married for 14 years without children, Farmeena and Nasir had adopted two of his elder brother’s children – an eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son.
Farmeena herself is an orphan. Nasir was her whole family.
“Who will now take care of me and my children?” she said. “I lost everything, what is the use of my life now, you tell me.”
Holding the only picture she has of her husband, she says she misses him every day.
She remembers when Nasir would make the whole family laugh. “He was so cheerful and would often tell us that we will miss his jokes someday and looks like he was right,” she said.
Prayer is her refuge now.
Nasir was close to his children, especially his daughter Ansum. Ansum says that her father has gone up in the sky.
“Do you miss your papa?” Farmeena asked her daughter.
She replied, “I do, but I talk to him sometimes.”
About 20 km from Ghatmeeka, Asmeena Khan lay on a charpai outside a two-room home in Kolgaon village in Haryana’s Nuh district. Every day, her children carry her on the cot into the courtyard of the house so that she can get some air and sunlight.
Khan is in her 30s but six years of grief have aged her.
On the night of July 20, 2018, a mob of Hindutva supporters killed her husband Rakbar Khan, a dairy farmer, while he was walking home from a neighbouring village with a milch cow. Barely four months later, Asmeena was left paralysed after a near-fatal motor crash in December that year while she was on her way to Aligarh, to get her son admitted to a school.
“If my husband hadn’t been killed, I wouldn’t have had to take my son there,” said Asmeena. “They not only took Rakbar’s life but shattered our family forever.”
Asmeena now shoulders the responsibility of her family of seven children, the youngest of whom is five years old. The two eldest daughters are married.
In May 2023, an Alwar court in neighbouring Rajasthan convicted four men to seven years in jail for murdering her husband and acquitted one accused.
“Is seven years in jail enough for killing an innocent man and ruining his family forever enough?” asked Asmeena. “Every day is haunting. Spending it without him feels like an eternity.”
To survive, the family now sells milk from a cow and a couple of goats. Sahila, the couple’s second eldest daughter who is married and lives in Ghatmeeka, often visits the village to help Ameena with the household chores.
Over the past six years, the younger children have realised that their father will not be coming back. “So now they write his name on walls, or check his photos and videos and at times smell his clothes,” said Asmeena.
On the compound wall, a scrawl in Hindi reads “Rakbar Khan.”
“My son wrote it,” said Asmeena. “All we have now are memories of him.”
When Sahila recalls her father, she is consumed by anxiety.
“My father would tell me that if I ever face any difficulty in my life, I should come to him but who do I share my pain with, now that he is gone,” she said. “Sometimes my heart is so heavy that I question my existence but then I look at the face of my son.”
Rakbar Khan was buried in a local graveyard. Sometimes, Sahila visits his grave to pray there.
