
Zakia Jafri: Gritty Gujarat riot survivor who fought for justice till her last breath
Zakia Jafri like 68 others who were killed in Gulberg society during 2022 Gujarat riots never got justice. But with quiet resolve she went about fighting in court
On February 3, Nishrin, Tanveer and Zuber Jafri, the children of Zakia and Ehsan Jafri bid a final goodbye to their home in Gulberg society in Ahmedabad, as they laid their mother Zakia to rest at their father’s grave.
“Twenty-three years after she last saw my father, she is finally united with him,” said Tanveer Jafri.
Zakia Jafri was one of the 32 survivors of the Gulberg Society massacre which unfolded during the riots that engulfed Gujarat on February 28, 2002. On that ill-fated day, more than 68 people were killed in the upper middle-class Bohra Muslim gated housing society established by Ehsan Jafri.
Zakia Jafri, then 64-years-old, last saw her husband when he stepped out of their home to plead with the mob to spare the people and ended up being brutally killed.
Also read: Why the gutted Gulberg Society has not healed from the 2002 Gujarat riots
'Don't come out, whatever happens'
Zakia’s eldest child Nishrin remembered, “Go in the library, take the children and all the people. Don’t come out whatever happens…these were the last words my father told my mother.”
Talking to The Federal, Nishrin further added, “My mother was seemingly stoic, knowing very well that her husband might not come back alive. She took us and asked the people, mostly women and children who had taken refuge at our home, to head towards the library. Then she rushed to the terrace to bring down our maid Geetaben, a Hindu woman who was stuck with us.”
In the evening, when the survivors emerged from the Gulberg society, Zakia came out holding Geetaben’s hands.
“Zakiaben, Sairabehen Sandhi, Rupaben, Anishaben were all injured. While other women were crying and calling for their family, Zakiaben had become very quiet as if she had turned into stone by what she had to endure. I took all of them to the civil hospital,” shared Rafiq Ahmedabad, another survivor of Gulberg Society, who lost 11 members of his family in 2002.
Zakia could not speak for years following the mental ordeal she had suffered in the riots.
Her son Tanveer shared with The Federal about how the trauma had affected his mother.
“She could not talk but used to just stare vacantly in front of her. After the riots, we shifted to a relative’s place in the city while I returned to Surat where I worked. She would sit at the window of the flat and stare into oblivion for hours. After three years of treatment, she began to speak and went through another year of speech therapy before she could talk normally again,” he recounted.
Also read: Sabarmati Express, Godhra carnages: The wounds that remain hard to heal
House no 19 at Gulberg society, the home of the Jafris
Larger conspiracy
A year after she began to talk, in 2005, Zakia began to meet the riot survivors in various relief camps in Ahmedabad. In 2006, she filed a case alleging “larger conspiracy” against the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and other top BJP leaders.
“She came out of her home after the riots as a widow of Ehsan Jafri but over the years she became so much than that,” said Shamshad Pathan, an advocate who handled multiple cases on behalf of riot survivors.
According to Salma Sultan, the younger sister of Ehsan Jafri, “For twenty years, Zakia Jafri gave herself completely to nothing else but pursing justice. Despite her age, she attended every court hearing and even as her health declined over the years she refused to give up on her legal battle. She did not even go to visit Nishrin in the USA or move on as so many advised her.”
“The only time I saw her break down was in 2016 when the Gujarat high court ruled that Ehsan Jafri’s private firing had acted as a catalyst to provoke the mob that was not really interested in causing deaths. The court’s decision was a crushing blow to her. That day she visited bhai’s (Ehsan Jafri) grave and wept,” said Salma, tears rolling down her face.
Difficult times
Young couple Zakia and Ehsan Jafri with their son Tanveer
Zakia Jafri was born to a born into a wealthy landlord family in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh in late 1939. She was pursuing her bachelor’s degree when she was married to Ehsan Jafri, who was then studying to be a lawyer.
Soon after her marriage, she found herself displaced in the 1969 communal riots in Khandwa, when their home was burnt down. For a year the couple was forced to stay in a refugee camp until they relocated to Ahmedabad in early 1971.
“Ammi and Abba completed their studies while living in a refugee camp. I never heard Ammi complain about the difficult life she had gone through. After her marriage, she went from having servants around her to standing in queues for water and food. But Ammi and Abba thrived even in these circumstances. They both finished their studies and Abba decided to pursue his law practice in Ahmedabad, a city where he had done his schooling,” said Nishrin.
“Ammi built a home here in Saraspur. It was a small two-room flat where we (three siblings) were born. Abba had joined the Congress and was heading the Ahmedabad unit,” recounted Nishrin.
After her father won the Parliamentary polls, their lives changed.
“While we continued living in the same house, Ammi and us were exposed to various leaders, senior policemen, writers and activists often visiting our home. But our happiness was short lived. In the 1992 riots, our home was attacked and destroyed. We were back to living in a refugee camp in Ahmedabad. Ammi would help other women even in the refugee camp and refuse special treatment when anyone would bring her water or food so that she did not have to stand in queue,” Nishrin told The Federal.
Tanveer recalled, “When Abba decided to build a home again around the same area where we were attacked in the 1992 riots, everyone strongly advised against it. Many women from the camp told Ammi to come to the Muslim ghetto where they had shifted. But Ammi stood by our father’s decision to build a Dawoodi Bohra housing society in a Hindu dominated area in the Chamanpura area of Ahmedabad about four kilometers away from the police commissioner’s office.”
“Ammi had saved some gold jewellery that her father had gifted her at wedding. She sold all of them to make her third home from scratch,” she shared.
Noticeably, there were 19 houses in Gulberg society and one apartment, all of which belonged to affluent Dawoodi Bohra Muslims except for one of the flats that was owned by a Parsi family.
Quiet resolve
When Zakia Jafri filed a case against Modi in 2006, the first backlash was from the Bohra community. Mahmood Sayedna, then chief of the Bohra community in Gujarat refused to acknowledge that Ehsan Jafri was a member of the community. In the next few years, he also distanced himself from the victims of the 2002 riots and was seen sharing the stage with Modi who was then the CM of Gujarat.
Zakia, who was by then living with her son in Surat remained undeterred and attended every trial hearing in Ahmedabad, when the Supreme Court appointed a SIT headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan in March 2008, following her 2006 appeal.
“One day, after the depositions were over, Appa (Zakia) was requested by a local media for a brief interview in an adjoining room in the court. Just as she was about to speak, Babu Bajrangi and his men (who was later convicted in the Naroda Patiya massacre case) barged in hurling obscenities and did not let her speak. She had to be whisked away for her own safety. Bajrangi and his men chased her and pounded on the car even as she left,” the lawyer Shamshad Pathan told The Federal.
“Even on that day, she did not speak with bitterness or anger. There was a sense of quiet resolve in her that was very apparent. People around her knew that she was doing all that was in her power to get justice,” he pointed out.
Also read: Post 2002, is Gujarat a riot-free zone? Not really, numbers suggest
SIT report
In February 2012, the SIT filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was “no prosecutable evidence” against them. Zakia Jafri filed a protest petition in a local court seeking rejection of the SIT report that was rejected by the metropolitan magistrate.
After which, her petition was also rejected by the Gujarat High court.
On September 12, 2018 Zakia moved the apex court challenging the Gujarat high court's order rejecting her plea against the SIT's decision. However, in June 2022, the Supreme Court dismissed Zakia’s plea and upheld the SIT’s clean chit to Modi and others.
“In the 20 years, the case had become more than just justice for Ehsansaab. She had become a pillar of support for the victims and their families. She was always there at the meetings and never failed to attend the anniversary of the Gulberg Society massacre every year,” said a teary-eyed Rupaben, her neighbour from Gulberg society.
A frail but determined Zakia Jafri visiting Gulberg society in 2023
“One day, when we get justice, I will come back and live here once again, she would say,” she had said.
But Zakia Jafri never got justice, like the 68 others who were killed that day in Gulberg society. Of the 72 accused in the Gulberg Society case, 24 were convicted in 2016 by the special court and 11 people were awarded life sentences. However, all of them were granted bail in 2022.
After the Supreme Court’s verdict, Zakia Jafri went to live with her daughter in USA and would visit Ahmedabad each year in February. This year too she was visiting to attend the memorial meeting on February 28.
“In the last few years, she used to be always worried about not being buried next to Abba at Ahmedabad. Although Abba’s remains were never really found. We took a fistful of earth from near our home and did a burial at the Kutbi Mazaar about four kilometers from the home that Abba and Ammi had built,” said Nishrin.
“Now she finally rests at her home,” she said, bidding her mother goodbye.