A media person rushed into the school, dashing his colleagues and stepping on something he wasn’t worried about, though he hurt himself. Moving swiftly to be an exclusive, he swept around the place while his cameraman recorded the people.

The scorching sun bore down, turning sweat into dust. The air reeked of blood, sweat, and smoke—an invisible weight pressing onto the wounded bodies scattered across the ground. The cameraman recorded people, capturing heads covered with stain bandages. Victims’ wounded bodies lay exposed, their injuries raw and unhidden, and innocents whose shoulder blades and hips were swollen from the beat up.

Piercing cries that vibrated around seemed very disturbing. The agony and anguish of all the victims are carefully saved in the camera as the reporter walks through them.

The speaker sat down near an individual and touched him. A middle-aged man covered in cotton bandages around his head and keens looked at him. His eyes seemed vacuous and hopeless. It seems like the touch has distracted him from the void of incredulity.

“Bhai, what’s your name?” The reporter asked

“Gopal, Saab”

“What happened here? What sparked this chaos?”

“What else will happen, Saab? We were beaten, killed and destroyed. I saw my son murdered and my wife beaten to death, and I did nothing. For what cause? Eswar spared me. But for what? To live when I failed to protect them? To wake up every morning knowing my son’s cries will never fill the house again? To breathe while my wife’s last breath was stolen before my eyes?” he started to weep.

“ Can you tell us what happened?”

“Three days ago, my family and I went to offer prayers to the lord and returned home. Halfway through, we saw a mob protesting and damaging vehicles. They were furious with the Hindu people who were passing by.

Watching their rage, I told my eight-year-old son and wife to hide until the mob disappeared. But we were unsuccessful. They found us and beat my wife with a rod. I begged them to stop and touched their feet. One of them pulled me up by the hair, smashed my head to a nearby platform, and repeatedly hit me. While my son was trying to save his mother, those ruthless mob lashed my son so hard that his head struck a rock, and he bled instantly to death.

Later, they killed my wife. I don’t know how I survived and why,”

Gopal’s sobs faded into the air—just one among the many cries carried in the wind. The reporter steadied himself, turned to the camera, and spoke, “We heard a case of communal violence over new law around the WAQF bill. Many villages were targeted and exodus. Many were dead, and many more were injured. I shall ask, for what cause these innocent lives should be at stake? A board, which should be the central figure of peace and love, turned violent. For what reason? Is it about asking the right question?”

Protest must be heard through words, not weapons. One cannot instigate violence because they were not heard or didn’t like the law.