Kerala train attack: In Shaheen Bagh, accused’s family shrouded in disbelief

When 24-year-old Shahrukh Saifi left his Shaheen Bagh home at 9 am on the morning of March 31, ostensibly for work, and did not return that night, his family was wracked with worry. For a day, they waited and made calls, but his phone was switched off, and there was no word. On April 2, they went to the Shaheen Bagh police station to make a missing persons complaint. Their worst fear was that he was dead.

But at 10 am on April 4, when a Kerala police team knocked on their front door, his disbelieving family was confronted with a version of events that was even worse. Saifi was alive, the police team said, but accused of using petrol to set fire to co-passengers on the Alappuzha-Kannur InterCity Express on April 2. In the commotion that ensued, nine people were injured, and three people, including a child, who jumped from the burning train, lost their lives. On April 5, the Maharashtra Police confirmed that Saifi had been arrested from Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri. His motive is yet unclear.

“What we hear sounds worse than death to our ears. I cannot imagine that my soft-spoken grandson is a killer. There has to be some confusion,” Akhtari Begum, Saifi’s grandmother said.

The oldest of three brothers, Saifi lives with his parents, siblings and grandmother in a two-storey home of Abul Fazal Enclave 2, the road that leads to the home narrow and unpaved. A room on the top floor is rented out to another family, and the other three rooms in the structure is where the six member family resides.

On Tuesday, when the police arrived at the home, they wanted his parents to lead them to Saifi’s bedroom. “They were angry when I told them he had no separate room, and the family slept where they found space. They took away some books and gadgets,” said his father Fakruddin.

Family members and neighbours said that Saifi had completed school, studying up to class eight in a private school, and the other four in a government school, and worked as an apprentice in his father’s carpentry business. “From what I know, he would only move between his family’s carpentry workshop in Shaheen Bagh and a furniture shop they did business with in Noida’s Nithari,” said Mohammad Aslam, a neighbor and family friend.

So, when he left home, ostensibly for Nihari at around 9 am on March 31, his family thought it was just another work day. “But when I tried to call him that afternoon, I couldn’t reach him. Thereafter, his phone remained switched off,” his father Fakruddin said.

He said that when the police teams told the family that he had allegedly carried out the attack in Kerala, and was arrested from Maharashtra, there was a sense of disbelief. “My son has never visited these places earlier. I do not understand why he would travel so far to kill unrelated innocent people,” Fakruddin said.

Locals described Saifi as quiet and reserved, and while the family is still deciding on a future course of action, his father alleged that his two younger sons, and some other relatives were picked up by the police for questioning.

A police officer, who didn’t want to be identified, said the persons picked up for questioning were let off later in the day.

Rajesh Deo, deputy commissioner of police(south east) said, “No one from his family or friends have been detained. And when he was reported missing (on April 2), we followed protocol and began investigations.”