The small courtyard of Shayba’s house in Palla village seems unchanged to many. A well stands in one corner of the courtyard, with goats tucked around it. The trees demonstrate changes with season, and the cots remain stationary. Behind them are the three rooms of Shayba’s house, providing a roof to the family of eleven members who are still grappling with the loss of their twelfth member, Aamir Khan.
Aamir, 28, a truck driver from Palla village in Haryana, spent most of his days behind the wheel, working long hours to keep his household running. On the night of March 2, he was driving his pickup truck when his vehicle was intercepted near the Bhiwadi area of Rajasthan. As per the reports, a group of self-styled cow vigilantes rammed their vehicle into his truck, forcing it to stop. What followed happened in moments. Before Aamir could even grasp what was unfolding, he was attacked and shot in the head. The violence was sudden and merciless, claiming his life within mere hours.
According to the family, police officials initially suggested that injuries on Aamir’s head were caused by a stone. However, the family suspected that he had suffered a gunshot injury.
“I told them I would stay there when the post-mortem was conducted. I wanted to see what happened,” Aamir’s uncle Zubair says.
He further claims that a bullet was recovered during the examination and Aamir lost his life on the spot of the incident.
However, surprisingly, the Post mortem report, accessed by the FoEJ Media reads “death due to a head injury.”
“The victim was carried to the emergency department, and during treatment the victim died,” it adds, contrary to the claims of the family which says, “I witnessed bullet fragments being taken out of Aamir’s body.”
Imperatively, Police, also initially, presented a version of events that contrasts with the family’s allegations. According to Bhiwadi Deputy Superintendent of Police Kailash Choudhary, officers were alerted in the wee hours of March 3 about a pickup truck transporting cattle from Tapukda towards Tawadu while being followed by another group. The police said the chase ended near Sare Kala village, where tensions escalated into a clash involving stone-pelting from both sides.
Police said they recovered five cattle from the pickup truck near the scene of the incident. They added that the vehicle was carrying stones, which were found loaded inside it.
However, Zubair claims, “Aamir was shot by members of Bajrang Dal for no apparent reason.” FoEJ Media also examined the CCTV footage of the truck, which revealed that no cattle or stones were present inside the truck.
For further information, FoEJ Media talked to the truck owner who said, “He had worked for us for around one to two years, transporting fruits and similar goods.” To confirm further, FoEJ Media inquire at the petrol pump where Aamir on the night of the death went to with his truck. The fuel station attendants said, “We did not see any cattle in the truck.”
Soon after the incident, Police registered a case under Section 302 (murder) at Chopanki Police Station in Rajasthan in connection with the killing.
According to the complaint and documents submitted to the police, several individuals have been named as accused, including Sonu of Bhiwadi, Devendra of Bhiwadi, and others from neighboring areas of the Rewari district in Haryana.
However, the loss of Aamir’s family goes beyond the reasons and reports. The house bears the burns of it. Inside one of the rooms of the house sits Sumaiya, Aamir’s wife, whose grief seems to expand with each passing day. Sumaiya was pregnant when her husband bid farewell to the world. The only hope for happiness she embraced was the birth of the newborn baby, who she thought would never get the warmth of a father. However, a fresh ordeal unfolded in her life. She gave birth to a daughter, but the child survived only for three days, weighing heavy on her chest.
Meantime, the life of Shayba still revolves around the echoes of the pain she was put through and for her the cries of loss still hang in the courtyard, inside the four-walled closed rooms.
Inside Shayba’s house, life continues. Children go to school, meals are prepared and conversations are unfolded However, Aamir’s absence remains present in every corner of the house. It lives in Shayba’s prayers, and in Sumaiya’s silence. After Aamir’s death, the family lost not only a loved one but also its main source of income. The responsibility that Aamir once carried suddenly came on his brother Imran’s shoulders.
Along with grief, the family had to deal with questions of survival, household expenses, children’s education, and the uncertainty of the future. A small ray of hope came when the Miles2Smile, an NGO working for relief and rehabilitation of survivors of hate crime, supported the family by helping Imran set up a shop and taking responsibility for the education of children of the house. The shop did not reduce the family’s grief. It did not replace the son Shayba lost, the brother Imran misses, or the husband Sumaiya remembers. But it gave the family a way to continue.
For Imran, the shop became a source of livelihood and a way to carry forward the responsibility his brother once shouldered. For the children, education became a hope that their future would not only be defined by the tragedy their family suffered. And for Shayba, the shop became a source of happiness. “It’s the first time in a long while that there’s happiness in my home,” she says.
