New Delhi: On February 28, Ayub Ansari had to make a difficult choice: risk starvation or getting caught in the communal violence. The 50-year-old vegetable seller and his teenage son Salman lived hand to mouth in Loni, Uttar Pradesh, just across the Delhi border. They had not earned a penny to feed themselves since the communal riots had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 23.It was two days since the violence had subsided. At 5 am on February 28, Ayub was too hungry to bear it any longer and stepped out of his home to sell vegetables in Shiv Vihar in northeast Delhi. Within an hour, instead of food to eat, his son received his father’s body, drenched in blood. Ayub’s last few words to his son were that the mob had asked his name to confirm his religion before they stabbed him.Eighteen-year-old Salman is lean, with an angular face. He limps when he walks, but does not know what his condition is called because it was never diagnosed.Nearly four months after the riots, Salman is sitting outside a tiny, dingy shop that rents rickshaws. Clutching his faded blue shirt, he remembers the last morning with his father. He said: “My Abbu (father) did several odd jobs to earn a living. That day, I pleaded with him to not go out. I told him it was not safe for us. He asked me: ‘For how long can we survive without food?’.”There is a prolonged silence before he speaks again. “I have started forgetting things from the day I lost Abbu,” he apologised. But he cannot forget the condition in which he last saw his father. His memories are tormented by those images.Rolling his long fingers into a fist, he said, “That day, at about 6 am, two unknown men dropped Abbu at our home. He was in a terrible condition. I was frightened to see him like that. The mob had mercilessly stabbed him. Blood was flowing out of his wounds. They had torn my father’s head apart, making his skull visible. His waist and legs felt like they had no life in them.”Also Read: How Caravan Journalists Were Attacked While Reporting in North East DelhiDocuments and distressSalman works as a scrap dealer. On good days he earns Rs 200-300. On bad days, he earns nothing at all. Without money in the midst of communal riots, he borrowed Rs 1,500 from a friend to take his father to GTB hospital, but Ayub died before they arrived there.“My biggest regret is that I could not spend his final moments just talking with him. I did not have the time; I was trying to do everything I could to save him. Abbu kept saying: ‘I won’t live anymore.’ But I refused to listen,” said Salman.Like Salman, around 50 families lost their loved ones to the riots in Delhi. The Delhi government decided to compensate for this loss with a payment of Rs 10 lakh for each family that had lost one of its own in the riots. However, Salman could not claim this money. The office of the sub-divisional magistrate needed a document – an Aadhaar number or a voter identity card – to prove Salman’s identity and relationship with his father. But Salman had no documents.Men remove debris in a riot-affected area in Delhi, February 27, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri“Whenever I visited any government office to claim the money, they sent me to another office. They asked me to prove that I am Ayub’s son. I wish I had proof,” he said.After navigating the bureaucratic maze for months, Salman finally got an Aadhaar number, a PAN card and a bank account. He applied for the compensation again, a month ago. But the money has yet to come to him.He needs the compensation amount desperately. He needs to eat, to pay the rent his father owed the landlord and to return the Rs 1,500 that he had borrowed for his father’s treatment. His landlord locked him out of the house after Ayub’s death because Rs 1,500 in rent had not been paid. Since then, he has spent his days outside the rickshaw-rental shop and his nights at his friend Rizwan’s home.“I will pay my debts. Rs 3,000 is a huge amount for me. But I will work hard or save money by skipping meals. One doesn’t die without food for a few days. Right?” he asked.Also Read: ‘Only His Shoes Survived’: Victims Struggle to Recover from Horrors of Delhi RiotsWill the judicial system listen?The state failed to save Ayub’s life. Now it does not even take care of his son. Salman has little reason to believe that the judicial system will welcome him. He asked: “What is justice? Even if it exists, is it accessible to me? I am illiterate. I don’t know how cases are fought. I can’t even walk properly. My leg hurts all the time. How will I even go to court? What will the court do?”He is silent for a few moments, remembering how he and his father argued every day. “I have no memories of my mother,” he said. “She left us when I was eight. Abbu fell sick and could not go to work. I liked going to the madrasa but I had to stop. My Abbu became my priority. So I took the responsibility to earn.”The teenager now suffers from insomnia. “The image of my father’s horrific death keeps me awake. My memories with him keep coming back to me,” he said. “I don’t know what my future holds. It has been nearly five months and I still miss him. I still cry because Abbu was my world.”Sumedha Mittal is a Delhi-based journalist.