Ahmedabad, March 11: Ahsan Jafri sacrificed his life so that others could live.

On February 28, 2002, riots broke out across Gujarat following the Godhra train burning the previous day.

Jafri, a veteran Congress leader who understood the pulse of the volatile city, realised that the rioters would soon be at the gates of the Gulbarg Housing Society in the Chamanpura suburb of Ahmedabad where he lived.

Jafri, 73, lived in a two-storey bungalow — one of 19 in the society — with his wife Zakia, son Tanvir and daughter Nishrin. All residents of the society, except for one Parsi family, were Muslims.

As news spread of the riots, residents of the society and some people from neighbouring slums started gathering at the bungalow of Jafri, widely respected as a Muslim statesman who was also a former member of the Lok Sabha from Ahmedabad. The scared Muslims saw the house of a former Parliamentarian as a safe zone.

Around 10.30am, then Ahmedabad police commissioner P.C. Pande visited Jafri at his bungalow and assured him that police reinforcements would be coming along.

In the next five hours, eyewitnesses later said, Jafri and top Congress officials repeatedly kept calling the police, the office of the chief minister, government officials and even party leaders in Delhi, appealing for help and a safe passage for those holed up inside. But no help arrived.

Around 2.30pm, around 20,000 people baying for blood stormed the society. Since the gates of the housing complex were shut and the boundary walls were high, the mob used gas cylinders, taken from houses plundered on the way, to blast the wall from the front and the rear. Once inside, the mob, armed with swords and tridents, killed whoever they could lay their hands on.

Chanting “Jai Shri Ram”, the mob ringed Jafri’s bungalow and started screaming out his name. It was then that Jafri, realising that help would not come and that the lives of all the others were in danger, decided to give himself up.

The septuagenarian leader offered to pay the mob to spare the lives of the Muslims. The moment he opened the door with the money, he was pounced upon and dragged out. The mob struck him down with a sword, cut off his hands, chopped off his legs and then set him ablaze. The remains of his body were never found.

At least 69 people were killed in the Gulbarg massacre, one of the most brutal in the 2002 riots. All the 19 bungalows were burnt down.