One year on, life still off-track for Samjhauta victim

LIFE OFF TRACK: Shaukat's 15-year-old daughter Ayesha was killed in the Samjhauta train attack.

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Panipat: Rana Shaukat Ali is inconsolable. Time may have healed the scars on his face, but his heart is still wounded reliving the tragic night of Feb 2007.

Being inside the gutted remains of the ill-fated Samjhauta Express was not easy but he says this is something that had to be done.

Ayesha, his eldest daughter was just 15 years old and she was just one among the five who were charred to death in front of his eyes.

“I hope my visit will give some solace to her restless spirit. That is why I read the Koran there,” Shaukat says.

Shaukat and his wife Ruksana had come to India with six children but returned to Faizalabad with five coffins.

“I could not forgive them even for a moment,” he recalls.

It is this irreparable loss that made Shaukat the face of the Samjhauta train tragedy, probably the reason why despite of his five children being buried in Pakistan, Shaukat decided to come all the way from across the border to the Mehrana cemetery in Panipat.

A year later, as the numbered graves stand mute testimony to the ghastly tragedy, the tears and the prayers haven't stopped.