High cost of riots in northeast Delhi: List of 49 people who died during three days of violence

Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published by The Polis Project

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We would like to introduce this list by first expressing our deepest condolences to the families of all those who have lost a loved one in the targeted violence that plagued Northeast Delhi between 23 February, 2020 and 29 February, 2020. Violence is never easy to make sense of and it is our hope that people in the affected areas can focus on the ties that bind rather than what divides. That may be the only way to forge ahead in a time of extreme communal strife and polarisation in society. We also strongly condemn the hate speeches and pronouncements made by Indian leaders that have culminated in these deaths. Leaders of the ruling party are supposed to protect their citizens, not create and enable adverse conditions that lead to their deaths. Our list of deaths has been compiled from the following sources between 24 February, 2020 and 2 March, 2020. We will be updating this list as new information becomes available. The sources are:

• Deaths recorded at hospitals which have been released to the public.
• Deaths reported by Firstpost, Indian Express, The Wire, Quint and Print.in.
• Deaths reported in other print news stories filed by credible journalists.

To undertake this task we have triangulated and cross-referenced information across these different sources to arrive at names of people who were felled in this violence. If a name does not appear in at least two different lists published, we have not included it. We have also not included unidentified bodies that have been counted in some of the other enumerations of death tolls.

[caption id=“attachment_8090651” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Charred remains of vehicles allegedly set ablaze during Delhi violence. PTI[/caption] There is one exception to this – an unidentified 70 year old listed in the Guru Tej Bahadur Hospital list . We have only added those unidentified persons of whom we are reasonably sure, an identification has not been made. This helps us avoid counting the same person twice. So this is essentially a list of confirmed deaths. However, as there is movement in this data everyday with bodies being identified and given names, histories and proper personhood, we are releasing this as data subject to revision as new information emerges. It is important to remember that these are people with lives, families and identities and that their tragic and violent deaths are directly attributable to increasingly toxic levels of hate-based politics in India.

1. Aamir, 30, M
2. Aftab, 18, M
3. Akbari, 85, F
4. Akil Ahmad, 40, M
5. Alok Tiwari, 24, M
6. Amaan, 17, M
7. Ankit Sharma, 26, M
8. Anwar Kassar, 58, M
9. Arshad, 22, M
10. Ashfaq Hussain, 22, M
11. Atul Gupta, 45, M
12. Ayub Shabbir, 60, M
13. Babbu Salmani/Babbu Mohammad 33 M
14. Bir Bhan Singh/Vir Bhan Singh, 50, M
15. Constable Ratan Lal, 42, M
16. Deepak Kumar, 34, M
17. Dilbar/Dilbur Negi, 20, M
18. Dinesh Kumar, 35, M
19. Faizaan, 23, M
20. Hashim, 17, M
21. Ishtiyak Khan, 24, M
22. Mahroof Ali, 30, M
23. Mehtab, 22, M
24. Mohd. Furqan, 30, M
25. Mohd. Monis, 22, M
26. Mohd. Irfan, 32, M
27. Mohd. Shahbaan, 22, M
28. Mohd. Yusuf, 52, M
29. Mohsin, 22, M
30. Mubarak Hussain, 28, M
31. Muddassir Khan, 35, M
32. Musharaff, 35, M
33. Nazeem Khan, 35, M
34. Nitin Paswan, 15, M
35. Parvez Alam, 50, M
36. Pravesh, 48, M
37. Prem Singh, 27, M
38. Rahul Solanki, 29, M
39. Rahul Thakur, 22, M
40. Salman, 24, M
41. Sanjeet Thakur, 32, M
42. Sayid, 19, M
43. Shahid Alvi, 23, M
44. Shan Mohd., 35, M
45. Suleiman, 22, M
46. Unknown, 70, F (Listed in the Guru Tej Bahadur Hospital list.)
47. Vinod Kumar 50 M
48. Zakhir, 26, M
49. Aqib, 18, M