‘Winter is coming, were they just fooling us?’

Till Wednesday night, when the Muslim families here realised that Jamal had not returned after leaving early in the morning, with his belongings on a cart.

He was not the only one. Twelve other huts are now empty, the men, women and children that lived in them gone. They left in a hurry, and not everything was taken.

But those who remain in the basti think they will never be seen in Agra again. “We are all scared,” said one of them, 32-year-old Jahangir. “First, we were duped into converting into Hinduism. Then it became such a big issue that the people on TV started saying there was tension in the country because of us. We saw speeches saying that big people were angry with what happened and that there was danger of unrest.”

Mumtaz Begum

Mumtaz Begum, who separates waste that her husband collects all day, said she saw many leave late on Tuesday night, and early on Wednesday morning. “Who will want to stay here now? We are poor people, we just want to avoid trouble. Some have gone to Gobar Basti on the outskirts. Maybe they will come back, but why should they? What is left here?” she said.

Ali Amin, 14, cut in. “But we have to stick together. We all speak the same language, and pick rags for a living. They should not have left on their own. Everybody here has a reason for why they came. I came from Myanmar as a refugee. Others came from Bengal to find work, some from very close to the Bangladesh border. One boy even works here because he’s on the run from police. We can’t have any trouble,” he said.

As he spoke, 32-year-old Mudassir, who worked as a waiter in Agra before being thrown out for not knowing Hindi, and 26-year-old Imran, who had wanted to be a tourist guide, stood behind him, nodding their heads in agreement.

Since Monday, a constant stream of visitors have come and left Vednagar Basti. The police have come with questions, clerics have come offering solace, and politicians have come with assurances.

When one large group of maulanas from the city offered them a place to stay, many including 77 year old Sukhiya Begum broke down in tears.

Clasping the hands of one from that group, she said she was afraid. “Will they pick us up like they have taken Ismail?” she asked them in Bengali.
The language was foreign, but the sentiment was clear. “Don’t worry, amma. Your contractor Ismail has only been taken for questioning. We will take you somewhere safe,” one of them said. The group left, and another arrived, and the cycle repeated itself. As night came, Sukhiya was contemplating leaving, too.

A few kilometres away, it was another day of turmoil. The police were yet to arrest Nand Kishore, the only one against whom an FIR has been registered in the case of alleged conversion. The Congress held a protest march, before the police intervened. And outside the RSS office at Madhuban Bhawan, more policemen had arrived to keep the peace.

But without a TV to supply him with information, Jahangir had been asking one question of everyone that came to his basti.

“Dada, they had told us that if we participate in the function, they will give us BPL cards and pucca homes. I never agreed to be a Hindu, and I am a Muslim. But tell me, will we get homes? Winter is coming. Or were they just fooling us?”