Thread by @Rammyyyyy_

Remember the Teenager Named #JunaidKhan?

1) Another year has gone by, and Junaid’s family is marking the 4th anniversary of the day when their beloved child was brutally killed. Another year, they continue to wait for justice. Each year, the voices who storm social media with..

hashtags #notinmyname, and #JusticeForJunaid seems to be getting lesser, as the numbers of right-wing hate mongers grows. Junaid, a teenager who was studying to be an Imam, was beaten, allegedly stabbed and thrown off the Delhi Mathura train.

2) He and his two brothers were returning home after Eid shopping in the big city. Junaid was killed and his brothers were seriously injured in the assault that was clearly communal, with vile abuse being flung at the boys and their beards being pulled.

3) The murder and assauslt had then fuelled massive outrage and protest. @sabrangindia had reported how even after the attack, the shocked and injured victims received no response from the Emergency Police and Helpline numbers.

Junaid wad killed, his brothers Shakir and Hashim were also injured. The brothers who survived, had then also said that the railway police force at Ballabgarh railway station stood by and refused to help.

4) The young men had boarded the train at Delhi for Ballabhgarh, Haryana.

Junaid and his younger brother were students in a Madrassa in Surat and were home on their annual visit during Eid. ‘Some men’ who got on at Tughlaqabad started abusing them using filthy communal language, the survivors had told the media then.

When they protested they were brutally attacked amidst shouting of communal slogans. Junaid was beaten to death in the train itself, and then reportedly thrown off it.

5) The #NotInMyName protests after Junaid's killing had shown some resistance to the repeated violence..

against minorities that has been a hallmark of this regime. Four years later, there is little headway in the case itself. Acc to a report in Times of India the Supreme Court stayed the trial court proceedings in March 2018, and by October 2018, all six accused were out on bail.

6) Due to Covid-19, the court hearings “have been on the back burner.” Saira Bano, told TOI that despite the financial difficulties, the family that still lives in Ballabhgarh’s Khandawali village, plans to continue the legal battle. “We cannot give up. Junaid must get justice."

7) In January 2019, Saira Bano, mother of Junaid, who was just a teenager when he was lynched on June 22, 2017 on a Delhi-Mathura train, had spoken bravely about the investigations following her son's murder. "The FIR itself has not included the crucial section 302 and 307..

(murder and attempt to murder),” she had said, adding, “Six of the accused have been let off by the courts on bail. We need to speak out. There should be no question of feeling afraid. My son's death has killed the fear in me."

8) Junaid’s elder brother, Mohd Kasam, had also said “He was just 16. He did not even understand hatred against minorities. Those men asked him to return to Pakistan. There were 60 knife marks on his body, and nobody came to stop them".

It is time once again to loudly say #MuslimsLivesMatter, and #JusticeForJunaid, as India’s ‘lynch calendar’ as it were, keeps adding new cases as landmarks.

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