Watch: Why has justice been delayed to hate crime victim Mohammad Afrazul, asks his family
Afrazul used to work as a labourer involved in construction of roads in Rajasthan’s Rajsamund, where he was murdered in 2017.
Bengali Muslim migrant labourer Mohammad Afrazul was hacked to death by a man named Shambhu Lal Regar in Rajasthan’s Rajsamund on December 6, 2017. Regar also made his 14-year-old nephew record a video of the attack where he can be seen hitting Afrazul with a pickaxe before pouring kerosene on him and burning him.
“Jihadis, leave our country, otherwise this will be your fate,” Regar said looking into the camera, before he set Afrazul on fire. The video had gone viral on the internet at the time of the incident.
Yet, the family of Afrazul still awaits justice. Despite a viral video, they have been asked to produce witnesses in court, and have been unable to do so. “Everybody is scared to talk,” Afrazul’s distraught wife says in a video posted by Karwan-e-Mohabbat. Afrazul’s wife and children live in Malda, West Bengal. Afrazul was 45 when he was murdered.
The family has received a compensation of Rs 5 lakh from the Rajasthan government, and Rs 3 lakh from the West Bengal government. His wife, however, is not happy with the treatment meted out to them. “We only want the culprits to be punished as soon as possible, nothing else,” she says.