Delhi riots: For many family members, search for loved ones continue in morgue, elsewhere

The grieving family of 31-year-old Mohammad Dilshad waited with anxiety outside the morgue at the GTB Hospital on Thursday after search for him at various places in Delhi ended in vain.

His mother stood near an entrance of the mortuary, and held out a passport-size photograph of his "missing son" appealing to authorities to help trace him.

"Dilshad made automobile shockers for a living. He had gone out for work on Monday, but did not return home. We were worried as violence had broken out in the streets. He did not carry any phone, so we could not reach out to him," said Shaida Begum, his mother.

Begum, 50, and and Dilshad's sister-in-law Fareen Bano were gathering courage to enter the morgue as bodies were being collected by several family members after identification and post-mortem.

"We searched for Dilshad at places of all family members, but in vain," Begum lamented.

The agony of another family was palpable, as Mohd Nasiruddin, 27, and his wife Gulshan, 27, who had came all the way from Hapur, frantically looked for body of her father, who he said, "had been killed in the riot, after his home in northeast Delhi was set afire".

"They killed my father, Anwar (58), by burning him to death during the communal violence. Many goats were there, they all were charred to death. But, we are yet to find his body in the morgue," Gulshan said.

Also among the missing was 24-year-old Mohsin Ali, who was on his way to Karawal Nagar to rent out a generator for a marriage function there. He had been missing since February 25 evening, his family friends said.

"Ali had three mobile phones and all his numbers are found switched off. After we got information that violence had hit Karawal Nagar area, we took two cranes on rent and started hunting for Ali in areas of Karawal Nagar. We also received a call from an unknown number on the internet asking about Ali. We suspected something had gone wrong," a friend of Ali, Mustakeen Ali, said.

When they reached an area at Karawal Nagar, they were guided by a policeman who showed them some torched vehicles, he said.

"We identified Ali's car which was also set ablaze and later we rushed to GTB Hospital to check about his whereabouts," Mustakeen said as he waited at the mortuary of the hospital.

Relatives, including the mother of Shahbaz (25), who has been missing since February 25, waited anxiously outside the mortuary at the GTB Hospital since morning to know if their son was alive or not.

"Around 2 pm, he had gone to Karawal Nagar for treatment. He had suffered injury in his eyes while he was doing some welding work. When I called him around 3 pm, his phone was found to be switched off," his inconsolable mother said.

Shahbaz and his family live in Loni. A relative said they have been going from one hospital to another since February 25 looking for him.

"We have been here at the hospital since morning and still we haven't received any information about Shahbaz," she said.