Late in the morning on 25 February, in street number 17 of Delhi’s New Mustafabad, a group of women and men had gathered under a cloth canopy. They were in mourning. Shahid Alvi, a 23-year-old resident of the nearby house number 1715, was shot dead the previous day, in the violence that engulfed northeast Delhi.
An auto driver by profession, Alvi was returning home after offering duas—prayers—at a nearby dargah, when he was shot in the stomach twice, at around 3 or 4 pm. The shooting took place near the Mohan Nursing Home on the Wazirabad Road, the main thoroughfare that divides the predominantly Muslim localities of Chand Bagh and Mustafabad from the Hindu-majority neighbourhood of Yamuna Vihar. It is unclear whether Alvi died on the spot, but according to his family, two strangers took his body to the nearby Madina Charitable Clinic. “I was at home yesterday and my brother was coming from the dargah,” Shahid’s brother Irfan said. “When he reached Bhajanpura”—referring to the area near Wazirabad road— “rioters shot him in the stomach. He was on the road. Some Muslims took him to a private nursing home. He was declared brought dead.” Irfan added, “We don’t know exactly when he died, but I suspect he passed away immediately after being shot.”
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