Fifteen minutes before Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal began his speech in Ahmedabad on Saturday, Fatima Sheikh snaked through the crowd, passed through a security line, went around a row of television reporters and climbed the stage. “I am a survivor of the Naroda Patiya massacre and I have a letter for Kejriwalji,” Sheikh said. A group of AAP supporters, each wearing dutiful white caps, parted to make way for her. She handed Kejriwal a letter and he quietly began to read it. As she walked back through the crowd, I saw tears in her eyes. “He is reading my letter!” she said with awe and disbelief. Fatima Sheikh was in her early twenties on 28 February 2002 when she witnessed the Naroda Patiya massacre in which 97 Muslims were killed. Fatima Sheikh can remember the day with vivid details – the height of the flames, the smell of bodies, the indifference of the Gujarat government, the cold response she received when she, her husband, and her children tried to move back to Naroda after living in a relief camp for ten months.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 03:40:09 +0000
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