By Kaushik Raj And Srishti Jaswal
Charkhi Dadri, Haryana: “I still feel my husband has gone out for some work and will return soon. I cannot accept that he is gone forever. What was his crime?”
That was Shakina Sardar Malik, 23, whose 26-year-old husband Sabir Malik, was allegedly lynched on 27 August 2024 by a mob of Hindu men who falsely accused him of eating beef.
For the past five years, Malik, a waste picker, lived with his wife, their two-and-a-half-year-old girl, and their parents in a shanty in Charkhi Dadri, a district in southern Haryana. Like the other two migrant families from West Bengal who came looking for work and settled in Badhra tehsil, they lived in shanties made of bamboo sticks and plastic sheets, earning Rs 500 per day as waste pickers.
After Malik’s death, all three families returned to their village in South 24 Parganas, a district in the southern part of West Bengal.
“We went there for a better life, but that place snatched my husband. I felt scared for my daughter,” Shakina Malik said, speaking over the phone from her village on 8 September. “That’s why I returned.”
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.