The lanes of Daryaganj were cramped with grieving people, wearing kurta-pajamas and skull caps, long before the funeral prayers began. Men stood cheek by jowl, shoulder to shoulder, wiping tears from their eyes as they waited to bid farewell to Mohammad Arib, whose life had been cut short by violence, on Friday.
Some leaned against closed shop shutters. Others stood near the entrance of the house, uttering prayers under their breath. The area, usually filled with the noise of vendors and passing scooters, had turned unusually still. The crowd was glued together by the same feeling, a mixture of anger and injustice. Moving forward, other men could be seen sitting on chairs placed outside the house of Mohammad Arib, sharing the same silence and anger. A few of them stared blankly into the street.
Inside the house, women clung to each other, carrying the weight of the loss and slowly coming to terms with the crime and murder. Some wiped their tear-flowing eyes with the edges of their dupattas, while others sat stoic; the loss had engulfed them.
“They spare neither the elderly nor the young. There is no humanity left in them,” a woman said, with a voice full of anger.
Shortly afterward, the bier of Arib was lifted, with men following it, united in grief and anguish. As the body emerged from the house, the howls began to rise above all.
Arib’s body was so brutally mutilated that the family could not muster the courage to see it. They did not wish to remember him in the form in which he was murdered.
“The condition of the body cannot be described. It cannot be told to anyone. It was a killing of humanity carried out with extreme brutality,” a family member said.
“In his final moments he could not see his family, and his family could not see him. Even now, they have not been able to see his body,” a man said.
Reports say that Arib was killed over a financial dispute, but according to the family, Arib was lured into a trap. “Those men trapped Arib in a large scheme. They tempted him, saying there was valuable material for Arib. They took him into the forest and then placed a knife on his neck and slit his throat. When he fell and began struggling, they stabbed him on both sides,” the kin alleged.
As he spoke, several men in the crowd looked down, controlling their tears, hiding their pain.
“He was screaming and crying for help. They then struck his head with large stones. After that, they tied his hands and feet. Once he had completely died, they threw him in a deserted forest,” the kin continued.
“Why was such brutality inflicted on Arib? Why such inhumanity? What was the reason?” he asked.
“We advised the family not to see his face. “If we ourselves could not bear to see him in that condition, how could his parents possibly look at their son like that?” a person attending the funeral said.
“The lower part of his body was completely destroyed. Only the upper part remained,” Arib’s brother said.
Inside the house, the silence around Arib’s wife was even heavier. The death of Arib has left his wife shattered, making her unable to come to terms with the loss. “Our sister-in-law cannot bear the loss. She just keeps crying all the time. She has a four-year-old child. What will happen to that child now? What will become of him?” Arib’s brother said.
Next to her, Arib’s mother grieves the loss of her son, “My arm has been broken. My support is gone. He did everything for us. He was the support for all his brothers. There was no one else,” she said, tears rolling down her face.
Another woman sitting beside her expressed anger over what she described as injustice.
“If this had happened to a Muslim elsewhere, bulldozers would have already been used by now. Look at his wife. No one can bear to see her condition. Her grief is so deep it can break your heart,” she said.
“His children do not even know where their father is. From where will we bring their father back for them?” she added.
“For days no one has eaten properly. Someone has had just a small bite, someone only a date,” Arib’s father said.
For Arib’s family, the mourning is far from over. What remains is a long wait for justice.
“I only want justice,” his mother said, struggling to utter words.
A 31-year-old scrap dealer, Arib, was stabbed to death, and his body was dumped in Faridabad. Police said the partially decomposed body, with multiple stab wounds, was recovered from a large vegetation-covered plot in Sector 60 between 3:15 pm and 3:30 pm on Tuesday, though investigators believe the murder occurred on Friday.
The deceased left his house for work on Sunday with Rs. 200,000 in cash. Soon after, a message was sent from his phone saying he needed another Rs. 2,000, which his brother transferred.
“A message came from his phone to his younger brother saying he needed ₹2,000 more; the brother transferred the money. After that, Arib’s phone was switched off,” Arib said.
“The family thought he would return home, but when a lot of time passed and he did not come back, they filed a report with the police,” he said.
“After that, the search continued for three to four days. The call details were traced, and the police eventually reached Faridabad,” he added.
The family further revealed that during the checking of call detail records (CDR), the police found that his last conversation was with 25-year-old Harsh, who is a resident of East Delhi’s Karawal Nagar. On further investigation, it was found that his phone was with Rahul, a resident of Faridabad.
“When the police reached Faridabad, Rahul had already left his house two days earlier,” Arib’s uncle said.
The police, with the help of technical surveillance, tracked Rahul’s location to Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh, leading the joint team of Delhi Police and Faridabad Police to reach Aligarh on Tuesday and arrest Rahul, the Indian Express reported. Police said the body had been partially mutilated by stray animals before it was discovered.
Police said Rahul allegedly confessed during questioning that he killed Arib on Saturday afternoon and dumped the body in a forested area of Sector 61, Adarsh Nagar, in Faridabad.
“Rahul revealed that he carried out the crime with the help of one Babu. The two had a financial dispute with Arib. When Arib arrived in Faridabad, they lured him to Ballabgarh on the pretext of showing him goods. They tied his hands and killed him. The men then proceeded to rob his scooter and Rs 2.5 lakh in cash,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Rohit Rajbir said. Following this, police arrested Babu from Faridabad.
Yashpal Yadav, public relations officer of Faridabad police, as reported by the Hindustan Times, said, “They are being quizzed. It has come to light that there was a financial dispute between them, which resulted in the murder.”
