Exclusive: Why Did Sakir Board Junaid’s Train at Ballabhgarh?

Amid the probe into the Ballabhgarh lynching, Haryana police say they have been informed about another version of the series of events that led to the killing of 17-year-old Hafiz Junaid on board a train on the evening of 22 June.

Moments before he was stabbed, the teenager called his elder brother Sakir Khan, and asked him to come to the Ballabhgarh train station.

The Quint spoke to Sakir Khan, to ascertain what happened after he received that final phonecall from Junaid.

They called and told me to come to Ballabgarh station. They said they had a fight with someone. I went to the station and saw that a fight was going on in the last compartment of the train. I boarded the train. We tried to get out but it started moving.

Sakir Khan, elder brother of Hafiz Junaid

What Does Police Say?

However, according to police sources, Junaid had called Sakir on a phone that he borrowed from a passenger in another coach of the train.

1. At Okhla station, Junaid and the accused quarreled over seats.
2. After the fight, Junaid and his bother got down at Tughlakabad station and went to another coach, where they borrowed a passenger’s phone to inform Sakir about the quarrel and told him to come Ballabhgarh station.
3. When Sakir met them at Ballabhgarh station, they returned to the original coach, where the fight broke out yet again.
4. By the time train reached Asoti, which is 10 minutes away from Ballabhgarh station, Junaid and Sakir had been stabbed.

“They Wouldn’t Let Us Get Off The Train”

Sakir says that the fight was on when the train halted at Ballabhgarh. He said he entered the coach and tried to intervene. ‘We were stopped from getting off the train”.

“There was an uncle about 50 years old, with white hair, I asked him why are you fighting with kids? I told him they are not mature, there is a big age gap and he should feel ashamed,” he said.

“Then some people started calling us Pakistanis. They said you are Muslims, you are traitors, you eat meat, you are mullahs. They said we should go to Pakistan,” Sakir said

After the train started moving somebody stabbed me first in the arm and then in the throat. Everybody was abusing us while stabbing us with the knife. No one came forward to help, people were catching us and throwing us back at the assaulters. I don’t know how the situation became like this. My brother Junaid died in the train itself. We were thrown out of the train at Asoti, the station after Ballabhgarh.

Sakir was hospitalised for 10 days after the incident. He can barely walk and is unable to hear from his left ear. But the only thing Sakir and his family want is justice for Junaid.

These people need to be punished so that no more Junaids die. Tragic events like this have happened before. They pulled his beard, they threw his cap. They said you are Muslim, you eat meat. Everybody values self-respect, be it Hindu or Muslim.

Sakir remembers his brother Junaid as a kind-hearted person. “He was a happy person. Not at all quarrelsome. He was a religious person, who spoke about good things in life”.

As of 8 July, six people have been arrested in the case, including the 50-year-old man who started the quarrel over seats. The man who stabbed Junaid and Sakir was arrested from Maharashtra on 8 July. “I can recognise him if I see him,” Sakir says.