Dread and despair in the aftermath of Delhi violence

NEW DELHI • As deadly violence erupted in the north-east of New Delhi last week, with armed mobs rampaging through the streets, a small hospital located in a densely packed Muslim neighbourhood found itself at the epicentre of the unrest.

Al-Hind Hospital, in the riot-torn Mustafabad neighbourhood, was flooded with patients last week, and it has also become a place of refuge for people whose homes were burned or destroyed.

At least 38 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the worst sectarian violence in Delhi in decades, as groups of Hindus and Muslims clashed.

The violence began after weeks of protests over a citizenship law that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government introduced last December, which eases the path to Indian citizenship for minority groups from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries.

Critics say the law is biased against Muslims and undermines India's secular Constitution. Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party has denied having any bias against India's 180 million Muslims.

Last Thursday, people were still trickling into the hospital, saying they had suffered acid attacks and beatings with rods.

Doctors described being overwhelmed last Monday and Tuesday when dozens of wounded streamed into the 15-bed, two-storey building.

Some were carried on people's shoulders and others on wooden carts, stretching the hospital's resources to the limit. Many medicines ran out, as did oxygen supplies.

But the flow of patients did not stop, said Dr Mehraj Ekram.

"We were all crying as we treated them. For the rest of my life, I will not be able to shake those days from my mind," he said.

"The brutality with which people had been beaten, it'll never leave me. At one point, we had to pull the shutters down, because we could not take in more people," he said, tears welling up in his eyes.

Dr M.A. Anwar, a local physician who set up the hospital two years ago to make up for the lack of good primary care in the area, said the facility was built to give patients only basic initial treatment.

But, as thousands crowded around the hospital last Tuesday, ambulances could not enter to take patients to bigger hospitals, said Dr Anwar.

Amid the cries of worried families, Dr Anwar contacted lawyers who secured a midnight hearing from a High Court in Delhi that eventually ordered the police to escort ambulances to the entrance.

Al-Hind had no mortuary. As the staff got into an ambulance to take the dead bodies away, Dr Anwar said the vehicle was chased by men wielding swords.

"I hope in my life I never have to witness such inhumanity again," he said.

Last Thursday, traumatised families sat in the hospital. Some had lost their homes and livelihoods.

Mr Irshaad, a tailor who uses only one name, sat with his four young children and wife with a small pile of clothes - his house had been burned down.

"Everything is gone," he said, breaking down in tears. "What will my kids' future be? I have no documents, nothing to show any more."

On the floor below was 26-year-old Muslim Shabana Parveen, who had given birth after being beaten while heavily pregnant at her home last Tuesday.

She went into labour that day and a Hindu neighbour took her to safety, she said.

"A mob came into my home and hit me with rods on my stomach. I didn't think my baby would survive," she said, as her rosy-cheeked infant yawned beside her.

"I don't know where I'll go. We've lost everything."

REUTERS