Kasganj violence: Shops owned by Muslims gutted, Hindu employees in dire straits

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Sardar Ali Khan, the 50-year-old owner of Baba Shoe Company, has not gone to his shop since January 26 evening. “Bahadur called me several times asking for money… I can give him Rs 500, but he has to look for other jobs. Goods worth Rs 8 lakh were destroyed. How will I rebuild the shop again?” he said. He added that he had employed six people, four of them Hindus. He recalled the tense situation after Gupta’s death. “A mob tried to set my shop on fire. I was pulled out and beaten… The authorities should have acted… It takes generations to build a business, everything looks bleak now,” he said. The government should provide interest-free loans to those affected, he added.

Next to Baba Shoe Company is the gutted three-storey Sherwani Boot Shop. Owner Mansoor Ahmed, 60, had spent most of his savings on his wife’s treatment, but she died two years ago. “I am still repaying the debt undertaken for the treatment. My shop had goods worth Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1.75 lakh cash,” he said. He employed eight workers, six of them Hindus. Two of them, Babu Ram and Rahul, had called him for money, he said. “I can’t pay them,” Ahmed added.

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While the fate of his business is unclear, he hoped his workers would help him. Babu Ram has been working with him for 20 years, and got a monthly salary of Rs 20,000. “Berozgaar ho gaye bas ab. Jitna hoga Ahmed Sahab ki madad karenge, lekin hume bhi pet chalana hai… jin logon ke dukaane jalaeein unko pata hi nahi is dukaan ke zayadatar customer Hindu hain (We have become jobless. We will help Ahmed Sahab as much as we can, but we also have to feed ourselves… Those whose shops were burnt don’t know that most of their customers are Hindus),” he said.