Around 8.30 pm, as I was trying to look down from the window at the rioters in our neighbourhood, a bottle of acid was hurled in our direction and hit my face. Some drops also fell on my daughter. Thankfully, The rioters didn’t notice that we were hiding in the house. If they would have, they wouldn’t have left us alive. Listen to the gut wrenching testimony of Mohd Wakeel Mansoori, a resident of Shiv Vihar for the last 30 years. Today, 2 years later, Wakeel has lost his eyesight and barely manages to earn a living by selling kids items at the shop under his house.
Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) had been growing stronger across the country since December 2019. On 24 February 2020, North East Delhi saw unprecedented violence, directed especially against Muslims. 2 years later, several more people like Afsari continue to live in burnt down homes, no means to earn a living and with barely any compensation given by the state, the future just holds uncertainty and despair for the victims.
