By Aas Mohammad Kaif, TwoCircles.net
What is common among Junaid, who was brutally attacked with knives on returning from Eid shopping, and Najeeb from JNU – whose name got lost in oblivion, and Rohith Vemula – whose last words were ‘My fault is my caste’ before he painfully took his life and engineer Yusuf Khwaja – who was killed in police custody, is the shared pain of their families.
To this day, the mothers of all these four individuals are fighting for justice. This is the story of one such mother – Fatima Nafees, mother of disappeared JNU scholar Najeeb.
“In a big country like India, there are thousands of mothers who suffer the same pain as us, they are not living but suffocating every moment. Their problems are the same as ours. Many people might find our fight as a personal issue but this is not personal. Our struggle for justice is our fight, but this fight will not only ensure justice for us but will also open a way for others so that there are no more Junaid and no more Najeeb,” said Fatima Nafees, mother of missing JNU scholar Najeeb.
Nafees said that she has hope that one day Najeeb will come back. “But Saira (Junaid’s mother) and Radhika (Rohith’s mother) do not have even this hope. You must have never heard a mother getting exhausted. A mother in very deep sleep will also get up the moment she hears her child turning around in hunger. The mother will get up immediately just to feed her child however tired she is. Because mothers never get tired. And I will also not get tired,” she said.
Nafees has become the symbol of untiring determination and unending courage for many women. Nafees is from Badayun Uttar Pradesh, which is both her maternal and paternal home.
The 55-year-old Nafees, who has been taking care of her ill husband, has been battling for four and a half years to find her son.
The 55-year-old woman has also faced police brutality while sitting for a dharna on the streets. She has wept bitterly in broad daylight to the point her tears dried up. Even though the loud wails over her son won’t reach Najeeb, her voice has shaken many hearts in the country.
“My beloved son Najeeb hasn’t disappeared. He has been made to disappear. All I have to see now is whether I find him before I die because my heart can never accept that he has left this world before me,” Nafees said.
Najeeb, whose disappearance was inquired by CBI was closed in 2018.
Najeeb, a student of MSc in Biotechnology at JNU, had been missing since 15 October 2016.
According to Fatima Nafees, she was informed by Najeeb’s friends at JNU that he was last seen having a tiff with ABVP members after which he was beaten up badly. The next day when she arrived at the police station to file an FIR, Fatima Nafees was misled by the police, who asked her to leave and told her they would bring Najeeb within 24 hours.
Fatima’s husband, who was suffering from diabetes and many other ailments at that time, could not get up from the bed and the family was struggling, but when Fatima started her fight, more than 200 movements surrounding Najeeb’s disappearance took over.
Slowly, Najeeb’s mother who had till then been a stay-at-home mother and who learnt from her children forgot her husband’s illnesses and took upon herself to go out and fight for her missing son.
“I took Najeeb’s picture to my heart and wept inconsolably but my voice didn’t reach the Chowkidar! I did not stop shouting and he did not even bother listening. I kept shouting for days my throat got sore but the Chowkidar could not hear my voice. Even today my heart hurts. My pain is so much that I cannot even begin to share it. I had always told my children to study well,” she said.
Najeeb was a bright student. He got admitted to MSc in Biotechnology. “First he used to stay in a dormitory, then I stayed with him in a separate room for days. I used to feel so happy that my child was on the path to success. And then one day, the news came that he had gone missing. Then started the campaign of lies against him. I still believe he will come back. As of now, we have filed a petition in New Delhi’s Patiala Court,” she said.
International poet Imran Pratapgarhi’s poem on Najeeb’s disappearance, ‘Symbol of Najeeb’, has played a key role in raising this issue.
Imran describes that he was returning after meeting with Fatima in a protest and he could feel her grief. He wanted to be the voice of Najeeb whenever his mother’s spirits fell. And that is why he wrote the poem to express the voice in Najeeb’s heart.
“I wanted to share Najeeb’s voice with the world,” said Imran.
He had recited the poem at JNU in a protest in the presence of Najeeb’s mother and she had started crying. “My voice kept shivering and I hugged her and told her to consider me Najeeb, Ammi,” he said.
“Children like Imran became my strength,” says Fatima.
“Qualified students from universities all over the world used to tell me Ammi, I am Najeeb. We will fight everyone. And they fought. They made videos, tweeted, raised their voice on all social media platforms but there was no difference to the government at all. The government did not listen to their voices and echoes. CBI ultimately filed a closure report and handed over the papers to the court,” he said.