They find strength in numbers

Faiz Mohammed, 45, couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw more than 100 Muslims alight from two trucks today. Till then, he wasn’t...

Faiz Mohammed, 45, couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw more than 100 Muslims alight from two trucks today. Till then, he wasn’t too sure if he would go to the polling booth in a Hindu-dominated locality to vote.

Faiz had walked to the polling station only to return after ‘‘stares’’ from some BJP activists outside the booth ‘‘prevented’’ him. ‘‘I was alone. I never thought that around 100 villagers from here, who had shifted to places like Meghraj, Modasa and Lunawada would return for a day to vote,’’ he said.

Gathering strength from numbers, in minutes, more than 250 registered Muslim voters in Pandarwada queued up outside a polling booth at a primary school.

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‘‘I did cast my vote finally. After what we’ve gone through in the past 10 months, I didn’t think the democratic process still exists here,’’ said Faiz, tears welling up in his eyes.

Not long back, even staying in Pandarwada was a distant probability for Faiz. Twenty-seven Muslims were killed in the village, forcing 100-odd Muslim families to flee. A few months back, only some of them returned to stay in temporary shelters as the Islamic Relief Committee-sponsored work on their permanent houses was still on.

While many came back to vote today, for those who were staying here, the past one month brought back fears of another massacre.

‘‘I haven’t slept for three nights now. Our family used to huddle in a tent and we always feared that something would happen on the election day. Fortunately, the day has passed off peacefully,’’ Jabbir Qasim, another villager, said.