Zakia Japho, who turned her personal loss into a sublime justice campaign after her husband Ehsan Jafher, was brutally killed during the Sectaski riots in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, died on February 2 at her daughter’s home in Ahmedabad, India. She was 86 years old.
Her death was confirmed by her son Tanveer Japho.
More than 1,000 people, most of whom are Muslims, were killed in the riots who caught the Gujarat, on the west coast of India, 2002. They began on February 27, when the fire killed nearly 60 people on the train transporting Hindu pilgrims to whatever, a city in Gujarat. The cause of the fire was challenged.
But as rumors spread that Muslims were responsible for the flames, the mafiars broke out in large parts of Gujarat, attacking Muslim homes and companies and killing people by people hacking and burning to death. Among the murdered was Mrs. Jafher’s husband, who was a union leader, a lawyer and a former member of the Parliament.
In a legal battle that has been withdrawn for almost two decades, Ms. Jafra has accused Narendra Modi, an Indian premiere, who at the time was a Gujarata leader for “conspiracy and an object” in the riots.
At all this time, “there was a stoička, desperate, and yet hopefully,” said Teest Setalvad, a human rights activist, in an interview. “For me, for us, she was the mother of all survivors in 2002, carrying the burden of her pain and loss with dignity and courage and always gives us strength.”
Zakia inhabited Fidahusain Bandukwala was born on January 15, 1939 in Rurmampur, a village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. She was one of six children Fidahusain Fakhrali Bandukwal and Amtubai Fidahusain Bandukwala, rich farmers. She moved to Ahmedabad, in the Western State of Gujarat, after marrying Mr. Japh in 1962.
The home of the couple in Ahmedabad was burned during the clutter in 1969. But instead of leaving the area, Mr. Jafher became involved in politics to fight for Indian secular traditions. He helped establish a Gulberg Society, a Muslim housing complex in the majority Hindu area.
Mr. Japho was elected to Parliament as a member of the Indian National Congress Party in 1977 – something that was not achieved by another Muslim from Ahmedabad. Mrs. Japho was active in her husband’s public life, her son said, and often appears with him at events. One black and white photo still taken at a meeting of the Congress Party in the 1970s, shows Mr. Japho on a microphone that dealt with himself full of men. Mrs. Japho is the only woman in the crowd.
She became more prominent public face after her husband was killed.
During the riot, Gulberg became the place of the massacre: 70 people remained dead there. Mr. Japho was hacked to death in his home because the rest of his family sought security up.
“Armed with swords, pipes, acidic bottles, kerosene, gasoline, hockey sticks, stones and tridents, the mob was unlimited six hours,” the Human Rights Watch report said. Mrs. Jafrea said in an interview that her husband had made More than 200 phone calls Government and police officers as she gathered, but she received no help.
In the coming years, she accused the high -ranking officials of Mr. Modi and Gujarat of conspiracy and supporting the mess.
Mrs. Setalvad said she met Mrs. Jafre in March 2002, just weeks after violence. She helped Mrs. Japho and other survivors Gulberg by pressing the Government to open an investigation into inactivity by the police force, which they claimed was under the supervision of Mr. Modi and protecting the people who threatened not to testify as witnesses.
“I don’t have that power now; I can’t even walk,” Mrs. Jafrea said by then in her 80s, in one of her last television interviews. “But I still go to court whenever necessary, whenever he calls me. It’s been twenty years and I haven’t got justice. The power is in their hands; what kind of justice will you give?”
The case was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court of India 2022 after the investigations were not able to detect concrete evidence that incriminates Mr. Modi. The court initially released him in 2019 and did so again when he rejected Mrs. Jafre’s appeal. It has ruled that negligence or clearing of the law and order is not the same as conspiracy.
In addition to the son of Taveer, Mrs. Jafra survived the second son of Zuber; daughter, Nishrin Hussian; and six grandchildren.
After the case was discharged, the government arrested Mrs. Setalvad. His lawyers told the court that she was taking a “revenge campaign” to slander the Gujarat and that she used Mrs. Jafher as a “tool” in the process.
Tanveer Jaffa said that his mother was disappointed, not only because of a lack of responsibility, but also the way her struggle for justice turned against people like Mrs. Setalvad, who devoted herself to the thing.
But he added, “She is comfort in the fact that future generations will have all these documents to discover the facts.”
