A Photo Report
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass
80 kilometers away from the National capital of India lies Nuh, a district that witnessed a large scale violence on July 31 following a Hindu yatra. The violence resulted into death of 6 persons including 2 police personnel. What followed was far more sinister & deadly. More than 1200 properties, majority belonging to Muslims were demolished in a brazen state action. As per the official data, the demolished structures were distributed throughout the towns and villages of Nuh, Nalhar, Punhana, Tauru, Nangal Mubarakpur, Shahpur, Aagon, Adbar Chowk, Nalhar Road, Tiranga Chowk, and Nagina. This event marked one of the most extensive demolitions ever witnessed in the area.
I visited Nuh multiple times, saw most of these demolitions happening before my eyes, heard the cries of the distressed and felt their pain equally. This photo-story will cover that.
1. Almost 80 kms from Delhi via Firozpur Namak, one can enter Nuh situated on NH248A
2. One both sides of the road, from entry point to the Medical College, one can find the bulldozed remains of all the shops
3. Crossing about 100 such demolished structures, One will reach Shaheed Hasan Mewati Medical College & Hospital
4. About 2 kms From the medical college lies the Nalhar Village & the nalhad Temple where all the devotees were going
5. 74 years old Khurshidan is the first lady we met at Nalhad. A joint family of 16 members used to live in the house for more than 30 years.
6. Aasiya, a 70 yrs old with a joint family of 15 members saw her house crumbling with bulldozer. Her crying video went viral
7. A widow & mother of 5, Nijri’s house was bulldozed too
7. Sariyam, wife of Rukmuddin & a neighbor of Nijri also witnessed the horror of her house getting bulldozed
8. Khatooni too lost her house in the bulldozer injustice. One of her son recently got married & everything got buried in the heap of rubble including grains and other essentials
9. Shahina, neighbor of Khurshidan also lost her house to the bulldozer on that fateful day
10. Manisa Khan, a resident of the same area had the same grievance. Her 70 yrs old father is too ill and she came to look after him but the bulldozer rendered them homeless & hopeless
11. 56 yrs old Aas Muhammad works as a security guard at the Mewat medical college, his sun had a tea shop outside the medical complex. His house & his son’s shop was bulldozed in the police action
