Priya Ramani // When Papa was lynched - Livemint

14.7.18

When Papa was lynched - Livemint: It was a communal revenge killing—a group of Hindus wanted to avenge the murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker Deepak Rao, 31 (we visited the home of the unmarried RSS worker who lived with his mother and hearing-impaired brother and who was murdered over a trivial dispute about erecting political buntings), and Bashir was a random Muslim target. Both men were killed on the same day.

Coastal Karnataka has its own peculiar brand of communal revenge murders—Hindu kills Muslim kills Hindu kills Muslim—and Imraz could easily have been Isha, but this story already has more symmetry than most real life tales.

Unlike Hussainabba, Bashir kept his children away from politics. “He was always the first to stay away from any controversy. When anything happened, he would call family members and say, be careful, stay at home,” says Imraz, whose nails are either bitten by habit or grief, I didn’t ask. When someone asks for her take on the current political climate, she says her father always sheltered her from such things.