Last year on 25th February, 35 year old autorickshaw driver, Muddasir Khan was shot during the violence at Kardampuri near Maujpur while he was coming back home after paying for the fees of two of his daughters who were studying in a private school at Shiv Vihar. He was declared brought dead by doctors at GTB hospital.
Muddasir is survived by eight daughters, Inaaya, the youngest among whom was just 18 days old at that time. His wife Imrana observed a four-month-long mourning and his daughters were in bad shape, trying to come to terms with the tragedy.
I met with family during our relief operations in the area. For Misbah and her family, the chaos surrounding the aftermath of the pogrom and the death of her father meant their family had to suffer in several ways — with their mental health as well as education.
Like most students in the Babu Nagar neighbourhood, the daughters of Muddasir Khan too couldn’t attend online classes for a major chunk of last year over their inability to pay the fees and lack of smartphones. Seeing this, we decided to enroll the children of Muddasir Khan in Sunrise Public School, a relief school for northeast Delhi pogrom victims that has been running in Loni since September last year. Currently, three daughters of Muddasir Khan, Misba, Iqra and Fiza are enrolled in the school.
When I met the family again in July this year, I found out that the family is still struggling with livelihood loss. The eldest daughter of Muddasir Khan, said she hopes to start small business of beauty parlour so that she can become self-sufficient and take care of her sisters and mother. She took the Beauty Parlour course and we helped her setting up her own parlour at Mustafabad.
Our efforts have empowered victims of the pogrom to develop entrepreneurial mindsets and independent thinking to create enterprising ventures that aim at self sufficiency and sustainability.
