..... I was holed up in my room since the day before. Not by choice but was forced to. I didn't know what was happening but evidently, something bad had happened the day before and there was a lot of tension in the village. One of our neighbours was yelling to my father that the Hindus have gone mad everywhere in Gujarat and we should be careful. When my brothers looked at my father, he told them that nothing could happen in our area, which is just on the outskirts of Ahmadabad, as the Hindus and Muslims have lived closely – knit with each other for long in this predominantly Industrial area that had boomed due to proximity to two highways, the Railway station and the Airport. He asked all of us to stay in our rooms just as a precaution, though.
Suddenly, around 9 AM, we heard an explosion somewhere. All of us ran to the well of the house where our father was sitting. He had probably jumped out of the sofa and was just staring at the main gate. Suddenly, he ran to the main gate and asked everyone to close all the doors and the windows of the house and shut themselves in their respective rooms. My brothers protested and stayed with my dad and asked all the women and me to hide inside. After about half-an-hour, we started hearing a lot of shouting coming from a bit afar but getting nearer by the second. Within a few minutes, the shouts became so loud that it was quite obvious that they were quite nearby. The roars kept growing and growing and it soon became evident that it was a very huge crowd that was swelling to horrifying proportions. There were only about 500 Muslims in our locality and no more than 2000 – 2500 in the whole town. The din told us that the crowd was at least ten times our number if not more.
I just opened my room's door a bit to take a look at my father and my brothers. I found them absolutely petrified with fear and wide-eyed with anticipation of something horrible. My father saw me looking at them and immediately shouted at me to shut myself back in my room. But, just as he shouted at me, our main door flung open and a number of men rushed inside and lunged straight at my father and my brothers. Our door obviously did not stand a chance against their large number. With a couple of seconds, there were at least thirty men in our house. Till then, I was unable to make out what they were shouting, but, once they were inside, I could make out their words:
“Kill everyone. Do not leave anyone”
“They have killed our people. We will wipe them out”
“Find the women. Bring them out”
My father and brothers tried to fight them off but three against thirty was a little too much. I could just stand there watching and started crying with fear and helplessness. Suddenly, a couple of them saw me watching and ran towards me. My father saw that and shouted at me to run. But, where could I run to. My room had no other entrance. I jumped under my bed. The two men tried to pull me out. I fought them as best as I could. I kicked and screamed and held on to one of the legs of the bed as hard as I could. Then, one of them got up and hit me on my knee with an iron rod. I screamed with pain and let go of my hold to grab my knee. As soon as I let go, they grabbed hold of my legs and pulled me out of the room, out of the house and kept dragging me for another thirty – forty feet outside our house right past the banyan tree.
They threw me in front of some very young men, who were definitely just past their teenage, and asked them to take out their anger on me. Those few started kicking me and hitting me with sticks as I lay there on the ground. While I was being pulled out, I saw that similar scenes were taking place in other Muslim houses in the neighbourhood as well. Large groups were dragging out people from their houses and throwing them in front of even larger groups and everywhere Muslim men and boys of all ages were being beaten up brutally. Within a couple of minutes, I saw my father and brothers being dragged out. They were already bleeding from various places and had already been beaten quite badly. But, that was not enough for those people. I had already had enough beating and was drenched completely in my own blood. I lay there motionless with my head turned towards my house. My eyes were open and I could see everything.
And, then, it happened. I saw my three sisters and my sister-in-law being pulled out of the house forcefully. A few of them pinned my sisters to the compound wall and four of them lifted my sister-in-law and took her to the platform around the banyan tree. They tore her clothes off and the other guys did that to my sisters. All the clothes were kept together and doused in kerosene and burnt. Whenever my sister-in-law or my sisters resisted, they received a slap or a punch or even a stick. They shouted at everyone to see what they were doing and, with that, they started raping my sister-in-law and took turns. Seeing them, another group brought my eldest sister to another part of the platform and started raping her as well. At least thirty men raped them one by one. They literally mauled them to death. I could hear their cries for at least twenty minutes, and, then, there were no more cries and shouts. It seemed that those men were simply raping them without knowing whether they were alive or not. Then, I looked over at my other sisters and saw that they were being carried off. Slowly, they disappeared from my sight and I could hear their shouts no more.
I kept hearing a lot of shouting and cries for help and people yelling at their helpless victims for another hour or so. Then, I blacked out.
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