Journo's jottings 2015: When politics over beef claimed a life in Dadri

It was September 29 and India was slowly waking up to the news that a man had been killed for allegedly eating beef in a small village of Dadri tehsil in western Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar district. It was at Delhi’s doorstep.

Mohammed Akhlaq had been lynched in Bisara by a mob of young men all of whom had grown up before his eyes and possibly played with his children, one of whom was an air force personnel and another who had been critically injured in the attack.

Bisara & the motley crew

Many thoughts crossed my mind as I made my way to Bisara, a two-hour drive from our office in Noida. What kind of people would kill a 52-year-old following a rumour that he ate beef? What kind of an area would Dadri turn out to be? What were the stories I could do? Would the state police talk about a matter so sensitive? And, most importantly, would Akhlaq’s family be willing to talk just a day after such a tragedy?

Some of those apprehensions disappeared as soon as I reached Bisara. I knew I had entered a minefield of stories. Journalists, photographers, cops, politicians and activists had descended on the village, hardly 50km from New Delhi… scenes that were eerily reminiscent of the film Peepli Live.

Just moments later, I found myself face-to-face with Akhlaq’s mother, who is in her 80s. Their two-storeyed house was swarming with reporters, photographers and TV crews, focusing on blood spots, broken doors and utensils. Asgari Begum took me to a corner of her small home to show me a bloodied shirt belonging to Danish, her younger grandson, who had been grievously wounded. A few of us — and I mean a few — wondered why the Uttar Pradesh police had not secured the crime scene for the forensic team to inspect or why had they not recovered what, to my little knowledge, could serve as material evidence.

Photographs of a weeping Shaista, Akhlaq’s daughter, being consoled by her cousin had already begun to make the rounds.

How did it happen? What did you see? Can you identify the culprits and what are your demands? I heard her narrate the ordeal over a dozen times to reporters, anxious to get a quote, a sound byte, anything...

Negative PR? Really?

The family was trying to come to terms with what had happened and the repetitive questions by the press did not help in the least. Even though interviewing them was necessary, the thought of the family reliving the tragedy was a sad one. But not as sad and telling as when a woman from ‘Peace Party’ visited Akhlaq’s mother.

The woman was wearing a white sari and sporting a huge red teeka. Akhlaq’s mother looked at her and probably mistook her for a member of a right-wing group. She folded her hands and said, “Humse koi galti nahi hui (We have made no mistake),” before breaking down.

Amid all this was the unapologetic behaviour of an overwhelming number of villagers who seemed to be more concerned about a PR disaster for their village than the gruesome murder of Akhlaq. The story continued with politicians from different parties winding their way to the village, some making shockingly provocative statements.

Soon, the media was chased away by the villagers who said they felt “suffocated”. Many journalists were beaten up. A video journalist’s mobile phone was snatched and a TV crew’s car window was smashed. We also learnt that a woman police officer advised villagers to chase us out as it was the only way to shift attention away from the village. Interestingly, later, I saw the same police officer supervising the probe into the murder.

From then on, the media camped outside the village, spending the entire day at a dhaba while scraping for any piece of information, which by then had become hard to come by. I, too, waited it out, drinking endless cups of tea in the process.

The view from inside

Finally, I decided to sneak into the village with the help of a local, who agreed to take me after much cajoling. I managed to speak to some villagers. However, after trying my best to hide from the cops, some residents informed the authorities. Moments later, two men appeared along with a dozen villagers, mostly women. I was not sure who the men were, but I guess they were cops or state CID officers. “Do you know these villagers can beat you up?” shouted one of them. “Who will take responsibility if something happens to you?”

We rushed out. Curious reporters asked me what had happened and seemed fairly indifferent when I told them of the threat I had received. If this was not helplessness, what was, I wondered, as I ordered another cup of tea.

A few days later, a peace meeting was held with Hindus and Muslims from different villages of Dadri attending it. The district magistrate quoted the Quran as well as the Gita and everyone agreed to rebuild peace in the area. The media also declared that peace had returned to Dadri. But the truth was far from it. Everyone in the meeting talked about reconciliation, even the journalists, but Akhlaq’s brothers were the only ones in a gathering of more than 150 people, asking for justice.

And just like that, Mohammed Akhlaq of Bisara village, for the world, became just the “man who was killed for eating beef”.

Sometime later, I wrote a story on how Akhlaq’s family saw him as a son, father, husband and brother and I realised how little I knew about the man who I was supposedly covering. He was not just “the man who was killed for eating beef”, he was “Papaji”.