She was happy to weave through the crowd of strangers in the house and ask for food, but she had not once uttered her name. She looked abou...
She was happy to weave through the crowd of strangers in the house and ask for food, but she had not once uttered her name. She looked about two years old. Nobody knew who she was.
“We found her near Medina Masjid, crying,” said Saood Alam, a resident of Shiv Vihar in North East Delhi.
On February 24, communal violence gripped this part of India’s national capital and reached Alam’s doorstep: a mob set his rented home on fire. Like most other Muslims living in the Hindu-majority area, Alam and his family fled with little more than the clothes on their back.
On the road, the escaping family saw a mosque was under attack. Then, they spotted the toddler – alone and crying. Alam picked her up and brought her with his family to a mosque in the nearby locality of Babunagar, where they took shelter, before they were directed to an empty house. The owner of the house, who lives in nearby Chaman Park, was kind enough to offer space to some of the fleeing families.
The toddler is now in the care of strangers. Her family is missing.
“Nobody knows who her parents are or where they are,” Alam said. “If we had not taken her with...
