Their final fate came three months into their captivity. A new, high-ranking commander visited the camp. He was bored with the usual offerings. He wanted something special. He was brought Fatima, who stared blankly at the ceiling as he raped her. He was displeased by her lack of reaction. He then summoned Bushra. He made her watch as he took a hot iron rod and burned Fatima’s face, disfiguring her permanently. He then looked at Bushra and said, “Your spirit is broken. Your daughter is a useless doll. You have no more value as entertainment.”
He ordered them to be taken to the “disposal pit” behind the ashram. It was a large, shallow ditch where the camp’s waste was thrown. They were thrown in, still alive, along with the bodies of other women who had died from abuse or disease. Lime was shoveled over them to speed up decomposition. Bushra held her broken, disfigured daughter in her arms as the chemical burned their skin and their lungs. Their final moments were not of pain, but of a shared, silent oblivion, two lives extinguished in a ditch of garbage, their story just another forgotten statistic in a war that had consumed their humanity.
The night the mob descended on their gated society in Cuttack was unnaturally still. The men, many of whom were part of the local Hindu nationalist groups, had been called away for a “special meeting” in a neighboring district—a cleverly orchestrated trap. Tanisha, 19, her sister Shagun, 13, and their mother Mousini, 37, were in the opulent comfort of their marble-floored home when the first scream pierced the air. It wasn’t a scream of alarm; it was a scream of pure, unadulterated terror.
The power went out, plunging the house into darkness. A moment later, the heavy main gate shattered. The mob that poured in was not a disorganized rabble. They were a disciplined unit of Muslim men, their faces covered by keffiyehs, their eyes burning with cold, hard vengeance. They moved with a terrifying efficiency, kicking down doors and dragging the women and girls of the society into the street.
Mousini, a woman of regal bearing, tried to shield her daughters. “Please,” she begged, her voice trembling. “Take whatever you want. Let my children go.”
A man, whose eyes were visible through the slit in his mask, grabbed her by the hair. “We will take what we want,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “And your children are what we want.”
They were herded, along with dozens of other women from the society, into a convoy of waiting trucks. The journey was a blur of rough hands, tearing fabric, and the sound of women weeping. Their destination was not a makeshift camp. It was a large, sprawling Madrassa complex on the outskirts of the city, a place of learning that had been swiftly converted into a fortress of retribution.
The moment they stepped inside, the horror began. The grand prayer hall, with its high ceilings and Persian carpets, was now a processing floor. The women were forced to their knees in the center. A mullah, his face severe and his voice booming, stood before them on the mimbar, the pulpit from which he once delivered sermons.