NEW DELHI: This letter was read out by 15 year old Hafiz Junaid’s relative at the Not In My Name protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi where thousands had gathered to register their voice against the spate of lynchings in India by cow mobs---and that are still continuing as news from Jharkhand indicates. The letter is what his friends and relatives feel Junaid would have written from the Heavens to his desolate mother. There were not many dry eyes as the letter was read, as it refected the sorrow, the hopelessness, and yet somewhere in the words hope.
The letter was in Urdu but the English translation has been made available by the Milli Gazette and is being reproduced here below:
My beloved Ammi,
Assalam alaykum wa Rahmatullahe Wa Barakaatuhu. [May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you too]
I hope you are be doing well, and I pray to God you are always in high spirits.
Maa, I've reached my real home, I am in Jannat. You wanted to see me in new clothes!
Look, I am dressed in absolutely new clothes. You sent me to Delhi to buy clothes, but fate brought me to heaven.
Here, I buy very nice pairs of clothes here.
Maa! I am very happy over here. I do not have to fear crowds here, neither is there any discrimination here. I stroll in the gardens of Jannat, and eat from its fruits.
I forgot to tell you that I am celebrating Eid with other martyrs. I am accompanied by Mohsin Sheikh and Minhaj Ansari, and all others, who are all living a life of eternal luxury.
But Maa, I miss you a lot. I miss my brothers, too, they all got injured..the crowd used knives to try to kill us. But look, Maa, everything changed and now I will live forever.
What makes me sad, Maa, is that you will not wear new clothes. You will not make Sewai for Eid. And like previous Eids, you wont be happy today. Looking at others will make you sad, because I will be nowhere in sight.
Who will have the sewai you make for Eid? Who will wear new clothes and come to you to make you happy?
Who will make mischief around the house?
You sent me away to get new clothes so I look handsome, just like a bridegroom. But what could I do, Maa, some things are not meant to be..You will not be able to see me in my new clothes.
Maa,
There is nothing to worry about, I am now married to the hoors in jannat. You will be very pleased to see me. Pehlu Khan and Akhlaq also attended my wedding.
But don't think about all this, Maa. Life on earth has a very short span. One day you will come to me, and then we will all live together.
Maa, I have a complaint to make, will you listen to it?
Maa, you lied to me. You used to tell me Hindus and Muslims form a brotherhood. But when the crowd was trying to murder me, no one came forward to save me, they remained mute spectators. They saw how I was being stabbed, yet they made videos of my murder.
I pleaded for help, but no one came forward.
Does a brother silently watch another brother get stabbed to death; does a brother make videos while this happens?
Maa, for God's sake, please don't lie anymore. Don't say the government is there to help us, now that you have witnessed the Modiji did not utter a word of either condolence or condemnation.
Don't spread the rumor that community and political leaders are our protectors. You are now aware of everything.
Some legislators are in the opposition, others are busy with aftaar parties, yet others are out to take selfies in the political corridors. These are the things they feel will bring them rewards from Allah, hence they spend their time trying to make headlines.
Nobody cares about you or me.
Was I not human? Are you not human? Was not the Noble Quran in my heart? Then why did they not come to ask after us?
Okay, Maa, let us leave this be.
There is one thing which you were right about. You used to tell me that there is no one but Allah we can turn to.
Don't you see, Maa?
The oppressed are sitting under His shade. No one labels us Pakistani, no one shoos us away and no one stares at us with suspecting eyes.
Pehlu Khan misses his elderly mother dearly, and this makes him sad.
I can see perseverance on Chacha Akhlaq's face; he misses his widow, and, perhaps his children, too.
And Saifullah is angry at his father.
Maa, do you know who Saifullah is?
He is the one who was devoured by political hounds. They labelled his death an encounter.
It is he who is the one upset with his father.
Would you like to know why, Maa? His father was bribed into declaring his innocent son a terrorist. He made him an oppressed in the eyes of the people.
Maa, people are very strange creatures. Even when it came to my murder, they got divide into two groups. Some consoled you and shared in your sorrow, praying their Eid namaz with black bands, while some declared fatwas against them, they imagined that by showing solidarity with black bands, they had rebelled against Nature.
I have heard today Shehla Rashid and poet Imran Pratapgarhi will wear black bands to show their support to you, without caring for fatwas.
May Allah reward them with Good. May this be, and then, again, may this be.
But will all this get me justice? Will all this bring back your happiness?
I am aware that I will not get justice, neither will the smile return to your face, because the Junaid you send to the market will never come back with new clothes to show them to you.
Because our legislators, infact not ours, only yours,.. these legislators are least bothered.
And lastly, don't ever let my departure grieve you, and do not cry...because its apt to mourn the dead, but I have become eternal, I am alive.
And do always remember me in your prayers, and keep reciting the verses from the Quran.
Your darling child,
Hafiz Junaid Shaheed
Residence - Jannat al Firdaus/ The gardens of Paradise